


Waterfall

by Helen1969



Series: Some Embrace only Shadow [1]
Category: Captain Harlock
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Prequel, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-12-20 03:56:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helen1969/pseuds/Helen1969
Summary: Heiligenstadt in Oberfranken - Summer, 2863... At the funeral for the Graf of Schloss Greifenstein, events are set in motion that will play out a personal tragedy against the prelude to war... Because if there's one thing a young Harlock forgot, or ignored, it was the old warning "be careful what you wish for..."Whilst he's busy trying to romance the lovely distant cousin he's adored from afar since they were children, dangerous forces are moving against the Harlock family. Mostly because they just can't keep from sticking their noses where they shouldn't...(CGI verse, prequel - related to the author's Et in Arcadia series, but featuring "Dark" Harlock in the years prior to the Homecoming War...)





	1. Chapter 1

_She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through.  
_ _**Virginia Woolf** _

_Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea._

_**Mikhail Lermontov** _

* * *

 

_Heiligenstadt in Oberfranken - Summer, 2863_

They'd flown in the night before, arriving at the spaceport in Bayreuth and taking the overland train to Bamberg. A flyer from the castle met them at the station, but sleepy and jet-lagged from the journey from Mars, she'd been bundled into her seat and dozed through the journey. Likewise arriving at the castle was a blur of movement by silent, efficient servants bustling around moving luggage, and her father's arm on hers guiding her up a staircase that seemed to go on forever, until she tumbled into bed at last, helped by a quiet, but friendly young girl about her own age.

The same maid was there in the morning at an ungodly hour, tugging curtains aside to let in a too-bright sun. When she sat up blinking away tears in the unfamiliar yellow light, the girl - Annelise - quickly apologised.

'Sorry miss - I forgot.' She drew the curtains again, to her relief. 'We don't tend to get many visitors from Mars. Is it really red?'

The chatter washed over her and she answered it almost automatically. Yes, the sands were red, where the terraforming hadn't extended, outside the domes and the Capitol. Yes, the sun was dimmer, the atmosphere still thin. No, this wasn't her first visit to Earth. Yes, the gravity was painful, but she'd travelled all over the galaxy with her father so she was used to having to get acclimatised to different gravity wells.

'Sorry your first visit's for a funeral, miss.' Annelise brushed out her long golden hair with firm but gentle strokes. 'The Graf's death was a big shock to everyone, especially the young Master. You're a cousin, aren't you?'

'Father and the Count grew up together,' she murmured politely. 'They were cousins - the previous Graf took father in when his parents died. And I've been here before - we used to visit, when I was little - not so much recently.' Three years, if she had Mars and Earth years aligned correctly.

'Ah. Well, there's not many of the family left now, on any branch. The young master's head of the family now. He'll be wanting to meet you.' In the mirror the red-haired girl dimpled at her over her shoulder as she arranged her curls neatly over one shoulder with a ribbon so they cascaded over the black silk of her dress. 'He's a quiet one, but kind. Came rushing back from his posting and only arrived back just before you got here.' In the mirror her reflected face bore a dreamy smile.

'Handsome, is he, these days?' she asked, smiling at a memory. She remembered a gawky, lanky boy with hair perpetually falling into his eyes. Quiet and laconic to the point of rudeness at times, but he'd sometimes hovered around, though with a tendency to vanish like a ghost if she'd tried to make conversation.

'Oh miss… wait till you see him! Always was a pretty lad as a boy - long curls, and the loveliest eyes… and his smile - it would light up a room. A quiet lad though - especially after his mother died, God bless her.'

She let the chatter wash over her with an inward snort at the perfection of young manhood being described. No man was that perfect…

She didn't even have a chance to evaluate this paragon of manhood first hand over breakfast, however, since her father informed her he'd risen early and gone out for a ride in the woods outside the castle. 'The seneschal tells me he wanted to work a few kinks out after the journey from Proxima. Came back on a fast courier with a friend - the pair of them were up and out before I got up.' He kissed the top of her head and held her chair out for her. 'Did you sleep well, Maya, m'dear? I know it was a tiring journey.'

She smiled and replied, the easy to and fro of the morning conversation second nature and not requiring a great deal of thought..

* * *

The pleasantries exchanged, fast broken, she took the opportunity to explore, changing into something a little more sensible. Black leggings and a black silk shirt, in deference to the mourning crepe strung up around the open rooms.

There were few of the latter, she quickly realised. The castle was old, and most of it was uninhabited. She remembered it a little less lonely, and a lot warmer. Even in the height of summer, it was cold inside.

The servants outnumbered the guests so far, since only her father and herself - and the new Graf and his friend - were the only ones in residence. And even they numbered only six - the maid, Annelise - hired in from the town for her assistance, she learned; a cook, the senescal, one cleaner, a groom and the Graf's valet, who was staying on only until the funeral, since with the new Graf serving in the Gaia Fleet, he wouldn't be needed.

'Even those will be leaving,' Annelise told her. The girl was at her disposal, so she quickly attached herself to the local and encouraged her friendship. 'It's such a shame, but with him being a serving officer and all, and there's no money really to keep the place going whilst he's away - even with opening some of the place up to tourists wanting to visit Old Earth.' She hesitated, stopping beside an old portrait of a man with his left eye covered by an eyepatch, wearing an ancient uniform with a cross-shaped device on a ribbon at the throat. 'Honestly, this place is old, and drafty, and there's no-one who really wants to live here - most of us prefer to live in the town when we're not needed. Even the title's more of a formality - and the last Graf preferred the Old Name for the Master of Schloss Greifenstein.'

When enlightenment didn't follow, she had to prompt for an answer.

'Oh! I thought most of the family knew?'

'They've had several,' she replied dryly. 'From what father tells me I'm amazed anyone can still keep them straight. But then - he also says the family has a tendency to need to re-invent itself every few generations, when they make things a little too hot for themselves.'

Annelise giggled. 'Funny you should mention that - we're standing next to one of the worst offenders - this one - from an old side-branch - tried to assassinate an evil ruler, over a thousand years ago, or so they say. Legend says the ruler was only saved because someone moved the bag containing the bomb behind a table-leg.'

She regarded the portrait more critically, wondering if the artist had captured any of that rebellious spirit in his subject. There was an air of quiet determination in the handsome face. Dark hair was cut short and swept back from a fine part profile. The nose was straight and long, the lips full, and there was a slight cleft in the firm chin.

'The name?' she prompted.

'Oh. Harlock. He found it in one of the old family histories.' She giggled. 'Actually, he confessed he thought it much less of a mouthful than Graf Schenk von…'

'Annelise!' The cook's bellow echoed around the gallery, interrupting the girl.

'Yes mother?' she called down.

'We've got twenty more arriving for the funeral tomorrow - get your lazy hide down here and start helping clear the rooms in the west wing!'

'Yes mother,' she replied with a less than enthusiastic tone. She winked at Maya, however. 'Sorry miss - duty calls. But maybe you'd like to take a ride out yourself? If you go over the bridge, take the road down the hill, and there's a gate to your right into the woods - go through there and there's a bridle path leads round through the woods, alongside the bach to the falls.' She grinned wickedly. 'You might enjoy the view,' she ended enigmatically, with a wink, as she scurried for the stairs.

Left to her own devices, Maya wandered the length of the gallery, looking for something very particular, prompted by Annelise's talk of an old, old family name. A plaque near the stairs proclaimed the picture gallery to be an addition to the castle when it had been re-built in 2205 by the Graf of the time. Not far from this her attention was caught by a painting that reached almost from floor to ceiling - encased, like the rest, in a protective environment behind a glass case, although this one appeared to have been painted on wood, not canvas. She remembered it well, since it had once hung in one of the guest rooms - the one that had been hers on their irregular visits.

It wasn't the size that had always held her attention, so much as the subject. Pictured life-size, kneeling on a flagstoned floor, was a knight in an ornate - and she assumed late mediaeval or renaissance - armour. A look at the legend below the case proclaimed it to be "Harlock I" painted in 1480 by "Leonardo" - whoever that was. A small engraved silver lozenge on the frame read: "Commissioned by Christine…". The rest was illegible. The portrait was exquisite, but then, the artist had had plenty to work with, she judged, looking at the picture of a man dead for fifteen hundred years or so.

Long dark hair brushed the top of the collar of his armour, which on a close examination bore the dents and chips of hard use - more so the skull-hilted sword he leaned on, held vertically in one hand as he knelt on one knee. The other hand clasped his opposite upper arm, as though protecting a wound.

The sword hardly had an edge left, it was so battered by battle - a suggestion given more weight by the tattered brown cloak pinned to the pauldrons, that swept down to the man's feet. He was young - painfully so, she thought - and handsome, with delicate features at odds with the trappings of war he wore. And the artist had caught something in the face that tugged at her heart as she regarded the painted eyes - a haunted, sorrowful expression of someone who had known great pain and loss. For all that, however, the pose was not one of defeat - although he leaned on the sword, the impression was of a man who would not yield - there was a stubborn set to the jaw and a sense that the resting pose was just a temporary respite before battle resumed. Behind him flew a banner, tattered and torn itself, bearing a skull and crossbones.

She'd reached out to touch that lost face before she realised, and her hand rested on the cool surface of the protective glass for a moment, before she pulled it away, embarrassed lest someone had seen the gesture.

She'd been more than a little in love with the knight as a child, wondering what it would take to make him smile.

There was more of a legend beneath the portrait, and she stooped to read it. But it held little information about the man - or youth, rather, since he looked about her own age - in the picture, save that the picture had been found in storage in a cellar dating back to the old Gothic castle that had once stood on the site since 1172, which had been sacked and looted in the Peasants' War of 1524 when the Seventeenth Century reconstruction had itself been rebuilt in the twenty-third century.

'Poor man - if you made a home here, it didn't last long, did it?' she whispered. 'I still wonder what your story was...'

Brushing what felt like a thousand years of dust off her black trousers, Maya sneezed - far too energetically to be ladylike, she bemoaned inwardly, glad there was no-one around to hear - and decided to head for the stables. If they had a decent off-road bike, she might even take the girl up on her suggestion.

* * *

'Bikes? Motorbikes? Oh no miss - nothing like that here.' The groom laughed through his nose, a harsh braying snort which had her gritting her teeth. 'Whatever gave you that idea? No - we've got horses, miss.'

His expansive arm gesture took in a block of narrow half-doors, most with a large head poking over the bottom half, staring placidly at her.

'Horses,' she repeated flatly, staring at the offending articles. She hadn't ridden one since her family had left Earth for Mars when she'd been ten.

'Yes miss. The Graf - and his son - are - were - enthusiastic riders - liked to do things the old-fashioned way, if you know what I mean. The Graf taught his son to ride, fence, shoot, fish… hours they used to spend together, before… well, you know…' his hand gestures were a little less emphatic this time, vaguely gesturing skywards. 'The War.'

'Hardly a war, yet,' she corrected automatically, her father's daughter to the core. Years following him around diplomatic functions had rubbed off. 'A few outer worlds rebelling and the occasional terrorist attack isn't a war - that gives these people far too much legitimacy.'

'If it ain't a war yet, then begging your pardon miss, it soon will be. They say all they want to do is come home, but there's no room on Earth for everyone, now is there?

'I'm sure it will all blow over,' she assured him. 'My father's part of the delegation trying to find a peaceful solution to the problem. We're travelling out to one of the bigger colonies after the funeral for a conference - he has high hopes for a resolution.'

He didn't look convinced, but he nodded politely. 'As you say, miss. Ain't my place to comment.'

She opened her mouth to protest at this, wondering what kind of feudal hell-hole she'd wandered into, when he snapped his fingers. 'Now - I do remember something after all, young lady - there  _is_ a bike - an old dirt bike the young master used to ride as a boy - hasn't seen daylight in nigh on five years, but I think I can uncover it for you.'

She smiled her thanks, and dutifully followed as he led the way to a cobwebbed outbuilding next to the barn, where, languishing under a straw-covered tarp was a sleek black and red trail bike in pristine condition, complete with helmet. A little help getting it juiced up and the tyres pumped back up, and to her delight, it started first time. Waving her thanks again, she set off to explore.

* * *

She loved the sensation - the  _freedom_ the bike gave her. She'd grown up with three much older brothers who'd taught her to ride, and only with her mother's early death two years ago had she needed to put aside her own pursuits and become the hostess her father needed. Demure, ladylike, serene.

There were times when it made her want to scream with frustration.

But not today. With the too-bright sun shaded behind a tinted visor, she allowed the bike to idle along the path she'd found - broad, well maintained and surprisingly clear of pot-holes - and kept stopping to admire the views when the path meandered near to the edge of the woods, allowing her views clear across the fields to the town.

But soon the path headed into the heart of the woodlands, and upwards. A gushing mountain stream wandered close to the path, tumbling down over the rocks to join a river below. When the path finally ended at a small wooden bridge with no side rails, she stopped the bike, letting the engine note fade from its electrical purr into silence, and tugging off the helmet. As she took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, she heard voices.

Curious, she dismounted and left the bike on the side stand, hanging the helmet on a handlebar by the chin strap. From the continuous low roar she could hear, a small waterfall lay ahead. And judging from the splashing sounds, presumably a pool of some sort at its foot, since a masculine squeal about the cold water reached her ears. Cautiously, she walked over the bridge and through a gap in the hedgerow beyond.

She almost walked straight out into the open, stopping herself at the last minute when she saw the two horses grazing in the small open meadow. A massive dark bay gelding with a white patch over one blue eye glared balefully at her, before lowering its head again to eat. A chestnut mare a good three hands shorter kept it company. Both wore headcollars with long leadropes tied around a nearby branch, allowing them to graze. Their saddles rested up against the tree trunk, the bridles hanging from the cantles. A pile of clothing lay untidily nearby, a pair of spectacles on top, another neater pile next to it - the dark green of Engineering, and the navy blue of the main Fleet command.

Their owners were about twenty feet away, laughing and cavorting in the plunge pool of a twenty-foot waterfall which cascaded over the small cliff that dominated the end of the clearing.

'It's fucking freezing, Harlock! You said there was a warm spot!' The speaker was a young man with a wide, plain face - short and stocky, and a little pasty-skinned as though he didn't spend much time outdoors. He peered short-sightedly at his comrade and pulled a face.

'I lied. You'd never have jumped in otherwise,' drawled his companion.

'Bastard! I should jump out, grab your gear and leave you in there until your dick drops off or shrivels up completely in the cold!' But he was laughing as he spoke, and she judged the threat to be an idle one.

But her attention was now on the other young man - and as he rose out of the water underneath the waterfall, she felt her mouth go dry.

He was tall, that much was clear - there was a raw-boned look to his frame that suggested he couldn't have been less than six four, maybe taller. Long limbed, broad shouldered, but still with the slender lack of definition of youth. He looked a year or two older than her own eighteen - twenty-two at most. Up to his waist in the water, he pushed unfashionably long dark hair out of his eyes and laughed at his spluttering companion. From here, she couldn't make out their colour, but they were dark, and even partly hidden by spray, there was a fire in them she couldn't miss. His chest was mostly hairless and well defined, but her eyes were drawn to the dark hair under his arms when he raised them to push his errant hair out of the way again. There was something salacious about such an innocent gesture, and such a prosaic location.

He moved, stretching up and then walked out from under the waterfall.

She forgot to breathe.

_Saints preserve us… he's totally naked…_

She should look away, she told herself sternly. Really, she should. And it wasn't as though (three brothers) that she didn't know what men's bodies looked like, and her brothers always drew eyes wherever they went… but.

 _Breathe. Dear God, girl… breathe_.

He moved through the water with a grace she'd never seen. The pressure from the falls had to be hard to move through, and the current she could see swirling around the tops of those long, lean, well muscled thighs was obviously strong, but he strode through it as though it didn't have the audacity to dare to hold onto that tall form.

And yes, the water was cold… she he turned away back to say something to the shorter youth who was moving away out of sight, and she could feast her eyes on the rear of the object of her gaze. Again drawn to the sweep of those shoulders, the breadth of his torso tapering to a narrow waist, and the curve of the tightest ass she'd ever set eyes on.

She shifted slightly, suddenly all too aware of the shifting sensation of fabric on skin that was far too sensitive, and an ache in the lowest part of her stomach that she'd only ever felt late at night, when letting her fingers…

There was a sharp crack under her foot, and he whirled round so quickly to stare directly at her hiding place that she was sure he could see her standing there, hardly daring to let out the sharp intake of breath she'd taken. But he couldn't, could he? She was screened by a bush…

'You know, instead of hiding in there, maybe you should come and join us,' drawled a voice that ran from her ears down through the deepest, most secretive parts of her body, and down to her feet, making her toes curl. 'For one thing, you'd get a better look…'

She had to let her breath out and it did so in an explosive squeak. That voice was behind her, and it actually came from the young man who stood peering at her through thick glasses, a towel wrapped around his waist. She had to dip her head to look him in the eye, as he stood a few inches shorter than her own five-ten. His brown eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement as he looked her up and down appraisingly, then gave her an appreciative grin that lit up his homely face. He winked at her and she found herself returning the smile, despite the awkwardness of the situation.

'What did you find, Tochiro?' The godlike form in the water called out, in a voice she found only slightly less seductive than his friend's - and that, she suspected, only because she'd heard the other first.

'We have a voyeur!' the shorter man - Tochiro? called back. 'A very pretty one though!' He gave her a little push, and she stumbled into the meadow, arms flailing to keep her balance. 'Oops - sorry 'bout that, I… oops!'

The second oops, she quickly realised, was him dropping the towel. Blushing furiously, he picked the offending article up as fast as he could, wrapping it back round a surprisingly firm stomach and tucking it back into place.

And either he'd found the warmer water, or some girls were in for a fine time if they overlooked the otherwise unprepossessing facade… though that voice alone was enough to give a girl ideas - it was the audio equivalent of being licked from head to toe whilst being covered in warm honey…

'Tochiro! Stop showing off.' The tall youth strode out of the water utterly unconcerned that he made an even more impressive display than his friend. He didn't even bother reaching for the towel hanging from a nearby branch, and stood dripping water from every surface. And try as she might she couldn't take her eyes off the droplets that rolled down the skin of his - Saints! That water  _had_ been cold… and dripped from the head down to the ground.

As if aware of her scrutiny, the item in question twitched slightly. 'See anything in your size?' he drawled lazily.

Blushing furiously, she lifted her gaze to meet two very brown eyes, which stared at her in undisguised amusement, and not a little interest. But she'd held her own in diplomatic circles in five systems in the past two years. She schooled her features into the studied disinterest she used when crossing a hostile ballroom, and gave him her best bored smile. 'Actually, I did - but he's standing behind me.'

She had to fight not to laugh at the way his jaw dropped slightly, and his lips - wide, full, and sinful - opened and closed a few times as if he were struggling to find something witty in reply. With a practiced sway of her hips, she turned on her heel and walked past the equally astonished Tochiro, who gave her a rueful smile, seemingly well aware of her ruse.

Despite the temptation, she didn't look back over her shoulder until she reached the bike.

* * *

Tochiro couldn't resist laughing at his friend's obvious frustration as the girl in black sauntered out of the glade, wiggling an arse to die for. 'Was that her?'

'Her?'

The confusion was laugh out loud funny, but doing so earned him a furious glare.

'Try engaging your other brain, Harlock - that's the girl you never stop talking about, right? That distant cousin you've been head over heels in love with since you were ten?'

'Eleven,' Harlock corrected absently, still staring at the gap in the hedge where she'd disappeared as though she'd left a trail of afterimages in her wake. 'Although I was seven when we first met.'

Watching his friend standing in the middle of a woodland glade stark bollock naked, dripping from head to foot and sporting goosebumps in the chilly late afternoon air, Tochiro convulsed again, hooting with laughter.

'What's so damn funny?'

The question was forced through gritted teeth. Tochiro sauntered over to his clothes and started to dress.

'You. Never thought I'd see the day. I mean - you don't usually have any problems picking up birds - they practically fall over themselves to impale themselves on that pathetic excuse for a cock… but you're standing there with your jaw on the floor and let that one just walk right over you. Pitiful, my friend. Pitiful.'

Harlock ignored him and strode over to pick his pants up, proceeding to put them on, with his back telling his friend exactly where he could stick his observations.

Tochiro got another fit of the giggles, watching those shoulders bunch and tighten as his lanky companion tried to keep his temper under control. 'Awww… c'mon. Cheer up - you've got a long ride back to the castle to work out what to say to the chit. How hard can it be? Just flash that knicker-elastic snapping smile at her and flex a few muscles - the way she was eying you up like a lollipop, your total lack of conversational skills won't be an issue.' He paused in the act of tugging a light sweater over his head. 'You know she was just yanking your chain about me, right? I mean, the look she gave me when she turned round was pure, unadulterated disappointment. Trust me on this, she's not the type to look beneath the surface. Not at that age, at least. The young ones are always blinded by the packaging. I prefer older women.. and red heads… and great legs...'

'What the hell would you know about women?' The question was forced out through gritted teeth.

Baiting an almost legendary lack of self-control was insane at best, but that had never stopped him. 'A lot more than you. Maybe because I get them coming back for seconds, but for all those pretty boy good looks you just can't find one who'll settle down for the long haul? You know, it does help if you actually  _talk_  to them occasionally…'

'I talk to women.'

'My friend, you talk  _at_  them. It isn't the same thing at all. Though I do wonder if part of you doesn't want to get to know the women you screw that well. Perish the thought you might have to make a commitment…' His chestnut mare tacked up he bounced a couple of times on one leg with the other in the stirrup, the mare turning a heartfelt look at him as he hauled himself awkwardly into the saddle with an ungainly scramble. He gave her a pat on the neck to thank her for putting up with him. 'If you ever got stuck with only one woman for company for any length of time, God only knows what the hell you'd find to talk about. I'd piss myself laughing watching that.'

'Fuck off.' Harlock vaulted with effortless ease into his tall bay, ignoring the gelding's irritated attempt to close his teeth on a muscular thigh.

'Ooh… such language from a good Catholic boy… between that and your lustful thoughts about that blonde, someone's going to be spending some time on his ass in confession later.'

Harlock shrugged. 'I came back to bury my father and sort out the family affairs. If the good bishop wants more of me than that, he's fresh out of luck. I've never been one to apologise for my actions. I don't see the point of asking forgiveness for making a decision.' He nudged the bay into a walk, turning him towards the path back to the road.

'Even the ones that go totally tits up?' Tochiro asked cheekily, asking his little mare to trot to keep up with the bay's longer stride. He bounced awkwardly in the saddle as he tried to post.

Harlock grinned at him. 'Especially those…' He looked over his friend's technique and gave a long suffering sigh. 'Why is it a man with the reflexes of a cat when piloting anything mechanical can't manage to get himself in synch with a horse?'

'Because spaceships don't have minds of their own,' Tochiro replied testily. Butterfly-like his mind skipped back to an earlier conversation and he leaned over to prod his companion on the arm. 'You know, thinking about it, you don't talk much to anyone, do you?'

'I talk to you,' Harlock muttered. 'When I can get a word in edgeways.'

'I do not talk too much! Well… maybe a bit. But anyway, it's no really bad thing. I mean, if you hadn't washed out of OTC dad wouldn't have been able to snag you for our testing programme for those new ships, and we might never have become such a great team - my brains, your piloting...'

'I didn't "wash out",' was the ground out reply. 'I graduated, and I aced tactics, flight, strategy, navigation…'

'But… not so much on actually taking - or, what really stops you in your tracks -  _giving_  orders…' Tochiro, oblivious, pointed out. 'You do kind of just back out of any kind of confrontation.' A pause. 'Well, unless you can solve them with your sabre or fists, that is. I thought they were gonna expel you for sure after you flattened that twat who broke my arm…'

'He was lucky. I would have done a lot more that break his nose and jaw if you hadn't pulled me off him. And that intervention was your father. Mine told them to throw the book at me, given the prick was one of the sons of this new Council they are creating to replace the old Earth Alliance.' Harlock muttered. 'Just drop it, already. The next few months are going to be tough enough without more reminders of how the Graf's only legitimate heir is a total disappointment.'

They reached the road and headed for the bridge that fronted the entrance to the Schloss. Tochiro nudged his mare a little closer to Harlock's bay. 'You don't disappoint me, you know. I mean - we've known each other how long now? Ten years? Since dad inherited the major share of the company anyway. I was over the moon when he said the Fleet had assigned you as liaison to the prototypes section. Once we get the  _Yukikaze_  out of dock for her test flights, I can't imagine anyone better to put her through her paces.'

'Thanks - but that would mean more if your dad's translation of that wasn't "if Phantom can't break it, we've got a winner…"'

'He still on about that?' Tochiro snorted. 'I warned him the wing area wasn't right on that fighter. It was off by only a fraction, but at those speeds, no-one could have held that plane together as long as you did. You almost got yourself killed holding it on course to avoid that space station…'

'The  _Mirage_?'

'Engine failure, a major design flaw, my bad, and I still have the scars, right above my joy department. And he can't blame you for the  _Death's_   _Head_  coz that was totally down to me getting the mix wrong on that new ore we were testing. And it was just a  _little_  hole in the hull,' he added defensively.

Harlock snorted at that, startling his horse. 'A 'little hole'? In a spaceship? You sound like that idiot from Zone Industries who keeps trying to undercut your dad's tenders.'

Tochiro pouted. 'You know… you can go off people…' he sniffed, but as usual, couldn't hold a grudge for long. 'So, were you going to ask what's her name out?'

'We're all here for a bloody funeral… I'm supposed to be in mourning. It's hardly appropriate.'

'Oh. You have a point. But you could maybe practice your conversation skills while you're here. Captive audience an' all… even you couldn't screw that up beyond all hope, surely?' he asked chirpily. Harlock just glared at him as they rode into the main yard through the gateway, the massive oak panels shutting silently behind them on automatic.

The courtyard was occupied by the best ass Harlock could remember seeing, bent over, its owner dipping a sponge in a bucket of soapy water. He stared at the red and black bike, being lovingly hand washed by a svelte, nicely shaped blonde vision in a wet black shirt which clung suggestively to every curve. Then the object of her attentions registered. 'Who the fuck said you could ride my bike?' he snapped, without thinking.

Tochiro sighed, spotting the tell-tale signs of trouble brewing as she straightened up and narrowed lovely blue eyes at his friend. 'Spoke too soon…' he muttered, watching his best friend slide gracefully off his horse and march to his certain doom.

* * *

Maya stared at the belligerent young asshole blocking out the light, and had to bite her tongue to avoid her tendency to let him have both barrels. Her temper had often gotten the better of her as a girl. Young ladies, her simpering classmates advised her, did not pick fights with gentlemen…

Funny they didn't say how you were supposed to deal with six and a half feet of attitude getting in your face for the second time in the space of an hour… Although at least this time he had some clothes on...

She took her time looking him over with the same disdainful regard she'd learned very early on after puberty could keep randy lieutenants at arm's length. ' _Your_  bike?'

He nodded, a confused look creeping over that beautiful face as she watched. Whatever answer or response he'd expected, he clearly wasn't getting it from her, and seeing his large fists clenching impotently at his sides, she suspected going off script wasn't something he was comfortable with. 'The one that was lovingly mothballed in a rundown outbuilding under a filthy tarp covered by straw from a harvest lost in the mists of time?' she added sweetly. 'That bike?'

She heard, rather than saw, his companion struggle to contain a burst of laughter.

'I was at the Academy for five years,' he growled out eventually. He took a step towards her and she had to fight a natural urge to step back. Dear God, he was tall. At five ten and in boots, she could look most men in the eye, but not this one. She had to look up to stare into those gold flecked brown eyes instead of at a firm, clean shaven chin.

There was, for all the attitude on display, a curiously defensive look in those eyes. They flashed with anger, yes - a childish petulance at someone daring to touch his toys. But there was something else behind there as well, strangely vulnerable. She softened her tone. 'Well, it's been refuelled, given a good run in and now I'm cleaning it for you.' She smiled at him, gratified by the way he deflated almost immediately in the face of her best weapon. 'What me to put it away for you? There is a proper garage, isn't there?'

He just stood there, the reins of his impatient horse looped over one arm, and a look on his face stuck somewhere between confusion and frustration. She smiled inwardly. The big lunk had backed himself into a corner, and wasn't the type to back down - even from a girl. And even though she maintained eye contact, she couldn't shake the feeling he was as close to knocking her head off her shoulders as he was to kissing her…

Wait - where had  _that_ image come from? Dry mouthed, she tried to swallow, and brazen out the increasing tension. 'This way, wasn't it?' She flicked the bike off its stand with her foot and started to wheel it past him. 'Oh - and try not to stand there with your mouth wide open - something might fly into it…'

 _Like my tongue_ … She pushed the bike past him before the blush hit her ears. She hoped.

'Like your tongue?' His friend called out, with mock innocence on his cheeky face, as she walked the bike past him. He scrambled off the mare awkwardly and landed next to her, grinning like a lunatic. 'Just keep walking,' he advised her softly. 'And whatever you do, don't look back…'

'Why - is he really mad?' she whispered back. The small youth sniggered quietly.

'Well if you were a guy he'd probably have decked you - but right now he's just had his balls handed to him on a platter by a girl for the first time I can remember, and I'm having way too much fun at his expense to let you spoil it by being nice to him now…' He patted her on the arm. 'Word of advice - ahhah - don't look back! If you fancy him, make him work for it a bit. He never really appreciates anything that just lands in his lap.'

'Are you supposed to be his friend?' she sniffed. 'And I wasn't planning on landing in his lap.'

'Tochiro Oyama. And if you're not planning on throwing yourself at him, you might want to lay off licking him from head to toe with your eyeballs.'

She halted, and without looking at him, pulled the bike onto its side stand. She had to push past the mare he was leading to get past him, and smirked a little when she heard him swear as the horse trod on his foot and he hopped around, cursing under his breath. 'Serves you right,' she hissed into his ear as she passed him. Before she could change her mind she walked up to her young host - still standing where she'd left him, fiddling with the reins as though there was something important he meant to do with them.

She came to a stop a few feet in front of him, and stuck her hand out. 'I'm sorry. I was rude. I didn't know it was still your bike, and don't blame your staff- they thought it was just left around and abandoned. But it's a really great machine - would you mind if I borrowed it whilst I'm here to get around? I'm rusty on horseback. Oh - I'm Maya, by the way.' She was babbling. She knew she was babbling, but it all sort of bubbled out without a care for her dignity.

He looked at her outstretched hand as though it had a live grenade in it, she sighed. 'I don't bite,' she continued.

When he finally reached out his gloved hand and took her fingers in his, she just couldn't resist adding: 'much.'

Instead of shaking her hand, he bowed over it with impeccable precision, and raised it to his lips, brushing the back of it with a feather light touch. From the restrained irritation there was a shift to amusement in those sherry-dark eyes. 'I don't think I'd mind if you did,' he murmured, as he straightened. He didn't even seem to mind her hands being utterly unsuitable for kissing. She remembered only after he reluctantly released her hand that only a few minutes earlier she'd been up to her elbows in soapy water. 'I was just out of sorts - please - use the bike by all means. But it'd be a shame to roughen these hands… Next time, use a hosepipe,' he continued.

'On you?' she blurted, taken unawares by the sea change in his mood. She wondered if her toes were blushing, because she was pretty damn sure everywhere else was.

He smiled, the first genuine smile she'd seen on his face so far, and her heart decided a somersault was in order. 'Well, I don't think I'd object…' he drawled lazily. He bowed again with a smart click of his heels. 'Fraulein Rosenbach.' An errant lock of his dark hair fell over his right eye as he stood straight, and she ached to push it out of the way. It looked soft, though still slightly damp from the waterfall.

Trying to remember her manners, she dragged her wayward brain back to the matter at hand. She couldn't very well curtsey in trousers, so she had to settle for a slight incline of her head. 'Graf von…'

He raised a hand to silence her. 'Harlock, fraulein. Just Harlock. I never did like titles.'

'Harlock…' she tried the name out under her breath as he walked his horse away to join his laughing friend. 'Harlock…' As he walked through the archway to the stable block she shouted after him 'It's Maya, by the way! Just Maya!'

'I know,' came the reply. He looked back over one shoulder and smiled again, a tantalising quirk of the left corner of his mouth causing her toes to curl. 'I've never forgotten.'


	2. Chapter 2

'There aren't many people here,' Maya said quietly to her father. The small ballroom of Schloss Greifenstein held at most thirty people mingling quietly and making sympathetic small talk whenever their paths crossed.

'Sebastian wasn't a man who socialised much, since his wife died. Not a recluse, as such - he went about his business well enough. But this is just the official reception. I have it on good authority the locals in the town will be far sorrier at his death than this lot.' He gestured to where two sour-faced men in the formal robes of the new Council were talking to a corpulent clergyman in red. 'They sent a cardinal. Not sure why, since Seb kicked the last bishop out at least ten years ago.'

She took a delicate sip of a white which the seneschal - the Graf's illegitimate son, Mamoru Okita - had assured her was a local vintage from the family vineyard. Cool, crisp and sharp, it went down all too easily. 'He might be flying over the battlements if he keeps making pointed comments about his host where he can be overheard.' She turned a searching look on her father. ' _Are_ they a couple?' she asked nodding in the direction of the new Graf and his constant shadow, both looking stiffly formal and uncomfortable in a black uniform styled on Fleet dress greens.

'Oyama and Harlock?' Her father snorted. 'To the best of my knowledge, no - but that's their business, young lady.' He turned an indulgent, crafty look on his daughter, who was almost as tall as he was in her black heels. 'Unless you have an interest in the matter?'

A sip of wine went down the wrong way and she spluttered helplessly, waving off the attention of the fair-haired seneschal and smiling gamely at the matron who offered her a handkerchief. 'No - why would I?' she replied with as much innocence as she could muster. To distract her father she waved her now empty glass at the pair. 'Have you noticed every time someone tries to talk to him, the little guy steps in and chatters at them until they go away?'

'Always was cripplingly shy as a boy. Sebastian was a little hard on him, to my mind. I don't recall him having many friends until Old Man Oyama sent his son and grandson over to learn the business from his partner. The boys hit it off, I'm told, and were inseparable after that. Chalk and cheese, that pair, but even Admiral Sanada has learned better than to separate them.'

'And they do what, exactly?' she asked. She accepted a refill from Annelise as the redhead walked past with a carafe in her hand. 'From what I heard on the grapevine, they both almost got expelled from the OTC for fighting, insubordination…'

Her father chuckled. 'Checking up? My dear - are you sure you're not interested?'

'Just curious.'

'Arcadia Engineering has a contract to refit the Fleet - the Oyama boy is apparently an engineering wizard, though with a tendency to run before he can walk… Harlock was seconded to the company as a test pilot, putting the prototypes through their paces. He's gained quite a reputation for being able to evaluate anything from a capital class ship to a one-man fighter in combat.' He smiled at her 'I've heard the words "testing to destruction" bandied around.'

'Loosely translated, they have a reputation for causing catastrophe both separately and together.' Mamoru stood at her shoulder, offering a refill. A little over six foot and sandy-haired, he certainly didn't show his Japanese heritage -  _who does, these days, when "heritage" is so often a conceit of the dispossessed_? - and he wasn't as imposing as his half-brother, though he was also  _old_ \- at least thirty, at a guess. And happily married, according to a disappointed Annelise. 'Water,' he told her with a smile at her frown. 'Your father warned me you don't like to let it go to your head.'

She accepted the drink gracefully. 'No-one here seems too upset by the Graf's death,' she said lightly, fishing for information. 'Not even at the graveside.'

'Phantom wouldn't show it if you tried to tear it out of him with wild horses, but despite the biological connection, he wasn't much of a father to either of us. I can't complain too much - at least he made sure I had an education, and always looked after my mother financially - even after she wised up and decided that marriage to a man who actually thought she was worth it was better than being mistress to someone who thought she belonged beneath him - in all matters.' The statement was matter of fact, not bitter, and he shrugged at her raised eyebrow. 'It was what it was. Phantom - sorry,  _Harlock_ \- on the other hand, I don't think the Graf ever forgave for being the cause of his mother's death. Though frankly, you'd think a man from a long line of tall warriors would have had the sense not to marry a tiny thing like the Grafin…' He frowned, staring at the largely empty space around the two young officers, towards which the rotund cleric was proceeding like a red-sailed barge. 'Oh shit…' he muttered.

'Problem?'

'There will be if I don't head that pompous, pious ass off at the pass… I had to elbow that young hothead in the ribs twice during the ceremony else he'd have flattened the twat. Excuse me, fraulein.'

She excused, but couldn't resist following in his wake. Long practice allowed her to notice the cardinal's thin lips curl into a sneer as the seneschal approached, and the tension in the new Graf's shoulders was unmistakeable. Surreptitiously, she quickened her pace, arriving just as the cardinal bulled his way past Mamoru without a by-your-leave, ignoring his attempt to steer him towards the canapes. She hovered near a convenient curtain.

'You seem to be avoiding me, my boy,' the cardinal boomed as he approached. Harlock turned his back on him and shrugged.

'Well, you're astute enough to work that out,' he replied quietly. 'Now why don't you get the hint that you're not welcome and fuck the hell out of my home?'

She had to bite back a laugh as the churchman's face turned a deep puce that she was sure clashed with his clerical robes.

'Graf or not, boy, you perhaps need a reminder of your manners and responsibilities.' He brushed off Mamoru's attempts to tug at his sleeve. 'And perhaps keep your ill-bred lap-dogs out of my way. Bad enough you flaunt your catamite in front of everyone - but to allow this by-blow to mix with his betters…'

Tochiro shared a look with Mamoru, and as if by some prior agreement, both men stepped out of the way as Harlock turned back to face the blustering ass. 'Mamoru is  _blood_ , regardless of the circumstances, and he's welcome in his own damn home - which you, having discharged your unasked for duties, are most certainly not.'

'Yeah - and what makes you think  _he_ tops?' Tochiro added cheekily, with a wink at Maya, who had to hold onto her glass with a death grip to avoid spilling it, she was close to laughing so hard. 'Is it because I'm short? Because that's just plain insulting, that is… Hey Harlock - maybe if you did snog me, he'd piss off - or at least shut up long enough to watch?'

She was sure she could hear Mamoru counting under his breath. He might have been up to fifty.

'I was warned you were a pair of insolent pups. Perhaps you are not aware that the new council will not ratify…'

'The Council can frankly go fuck itself,' Harlock replied mildly. His eyes, however, were anything but - stormy and filled with a deep fury that she suspected was not wholly due to the pompous prat baiting him. This storm looked as though it had been building for a while. 'You can't take anything away from me that isn't yours to bestow…'

'Oh? Perhaps you might want to reconsider your position, given how much of your fortune is currently tied up with Arcadia Engineering and those new military contracts both you and Oyama are relying on,' the cardinal snarled. 'Your attitude and blatant disregard for tradition and common morality have been noted, and those contracts can easily be reassigned…'

Seeing Harlock's hands curl into fists at his side, one of them perilously close to the pistol on his right hip, she decided to step in. Stepping forward, she giggled girlishly, shimmied between the frowning young graf and the priest, and tugged on Mamoru's sleeve. 'I was wondering where you'd got to,' she gushed, mentally tallying up how much the annoying pair would owe for this performance. 'You went off without topping my gla…- Oh! Ooopsie!' She set one foot in front of the other, deliberately tripping and spilling the contents of her glass all over the cardinal. 'Oh dear, your graceness - I'm so, so sorry. Silly me… now look what I've done.' She dabbed ineffectively at his wet chest. 'Oh dear…' She threw away her balance again and fell towards the cardinal, who didn't, she notice, pass up the opportunity for a quick grope as he set her on her feet. As expected. She drew herself up to her full height and glared at him, careful to make it a little cross-eyed. 'Why you - you pervert!' She slapped his face as hard as she could, wishing she could have gotten away with a full right cross. Even so, it rocked him onto his heels. 'Okita san! I'd like you to escort this… this… creature away from here at once!' she declared imperiously.

By now two burly young men from the town who'd been assisting with the serving had strolled over, and between them and the seneschal, manhandled the protesting cleric out of the room. She caught her father's eye from across the room and shook her head. She'd explain later. She turned back to her reluctant host, only to find him gone, his shorter companion looking at her with an amused smile. He pushed his glasses up his nose and beamed at her.

'Nicely played - though if I hadn't given Harlock a shove out the door you might have gotten that daft bastard killed… Lucky for him he'd rather retreat to somewhere quiet.'

'Where..?'

Tochiro shook his head. 'Leave him be. He's where no-one will think to look for him, which is how he likes it. Thanks, by the way - it would have been more than a little awkward if  _Harlock_ had decked the fat cu-'

'Lieutenant Oyama!' she scolded, cutting off the epithet. He just grinned.

'Eh. Nice slap, though you almost went for the cross, didn't you?'

She smiled back. 'Three brothers. It's a hard habit to break.' They shared a conspiratorial smile. 'I'm Maya - we haven't been formally introduced.' He shook her offered hand heartily.

'Well, since you've seen me with my dick out, it'd be tough to stand on ceremony.' He giggled at her blush. 'Ahhh… If only you were a redhead… It's Tochiro. I've heard a lot about you.'

She puzzled over that, not remembering too many times when her young host had stayed in the room when she'd visited. He grinned again. 'Don't worry about it - you'd be surprised what he notices. Nice meeting you again. Maybe next time I'll get to watch  _you_ drop  _your_ towel…' he strolled off with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

'Care to elaborate on that comment?' came her father's dry, amused voice from behind her left ear.

'Daddy?' It came out as a squeak. She hadn't noticed him glide up behind her.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. 'Perhaps we need to discuss your tendency to go off on your own, young lady...'

She resigned herself to the talking to, and followed him from the room.

* * *

"Where no-one would think to look" turned out to be her second guess, after the Graf's study. The old chapel. Restored, according to a plaque, in the late twenty-third century from records of a gothic original, it was a small, octagonal folly attached to the main building by a narrow, stone corridor ending in a thick oak door with black iron hinges. Since the door was slightly ajar, she didn't see the harm in sticking her head through the gap to look inside, and sure enough, a pew at the front of the small room was occupied by a slouching figure taking the occasional swig from a silver hip flask, his feet up on the railings in front of his seat.

'Planning on standing there all day or are you going to come in?' he asked without looking around, startling her since she didn't think he could have seen her. 'You do have a tendency to lurk, don't you? At least this time I've got some clothes on…'

She almost replied that she thought that a pity, but thought better of it. From the slight curl at the corner of his mouth though, she had a feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking.

He didn't comment. Simply handed her the flask. 'Drink?'

She took it and sniffed delicately. An expensive brandy, from the scent. She took a sip, coughed a little at the pleasant burn as it went down, and handed it back. 'Tochiro was right - this probably is the last place anyone would think to look for you, given your apparent dislike of all things clerical.'

He shrugged. 'I've no beliefs, or any kind of faith, despite my father's best efforts. And the last chaplain was kicked out some years back one step ahead of a lynch mob, and not even father would have another in residence after that.' He didn't elaborate, but sat draped idly over the pew, one leg dangling over the railing, one arm thrown casually over the back of the pew, the other hand toying with the hip flask. 'Any reason for invading my privacy, apart from maybe wanting to get a good look at me naked again?' he drawled. The tone was one of studied disinterest, but those dark eyes were anything but. They looked her over from head to toe as though he were planning where to start eating her.

She flushed. 'If you want me to leave, I'll leave,' she began, and turned to do so.

He took his leg off the railings and sat up straight. 'I didn't say I wanted you to leave,' he said quietly. 'I'm just… it's just… crowds of strangers wandering around my home makes me a bit twitchy.' He had a bad habit of not making eye contact, she noticed. Either that or he found her breasts fascinating. 'I prefer to avoid them.'

'You don't say,' she drawled, in a passable imitation of his own tone.

He did raise his gaze at that, and the dark eyes were amused - and interested, when they finally met hers. Unbidden, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

'So, are you really drunk, or do you use that - ' she nodded at the hip flask - 'to give you an excuse to act like a boor and keep people at arm's length?'

The errant corner of those full, sensual lips moved a little higher. 'Busted, I guess. It weeds out the people who can't be bothered to look beneath the surface from the ones who might possibly be interesting.' He took a long pull at it and offered it again. She was about to politely decline, then took it and had another sip. From the way his smile kept playing with the corners of his mouth, it was the right choice.

'So - am I moving into the interesting column?' she asked, placing the silver flask between them on the bench. She perched on the railing, arranging her skirts neatly.

'You never left it - the only question I had was whether or not to leave you in it,' he replied dryly. 'But you didn't answer my question.'

Question? Oh.  _That_ question. 'Your guests -'

'Not mine. I didn't invite them. Getting testy are they, because I'm not at the door so they can stay on script and offer me their fake condolences as they leave?'

'I'll take that as "I've no intention of bidding them goodbye, please find someone else to do my job for me?' she countered. He was actually getting predictable, in an annoying kind of way.

'See, you're quick. Mamoru can do it, he doesn't mind talking to those idiots.'

'He shouldn't have to stand in for you,' she replied shortly. 'You know, you do have obligations…' She noticed suddenly his jacket was open, and had fallen back from his chest to reveal a t-shirt underneath instead of the regulation light sweater. 'What on earth…' she reached out to push the thick leather away to reveal a skull and crossbones emblazoned on a black T. She read the legend underneath: 'Space Pirate should be a valid career choice…' She stared into his eyes and tried hard not to laugh. 'Really? You wandered around a Society funeral and wake with  _this_ hidden under your jacket?'

His eyes seemed to twinkle at her. 'That's nothing. You should see the one Tochiro's wearing,' he grinned.

'I'm not sure I'd dare… I suspect it's not fit for polite company.'

'Oh - you can count on it. We had them specially made.' He pouted. 'Mamoru, however, wimped out of wearing the one we bought for him.'

'Mamoru seems at least to have some sense of propriety,' she retorted.

'Mamoru - and trust me, although our age difference meant we're not close, I do love my brother - has a stick up his ass. Mostly due to always wanting to be "worthy" - whatever that means - like I give a shit that we don't have the same mother. But it only takes one dutiful scion to run this pile, so if he wants the job, it's his. Hell, I'd sign the place over to him if the entail allowed it.' He picked up the flask and waved it at the walls around them. 'Most of it's a fake. Take this chapel - it's about as gothic as my left testicle… Some of the bricks and walls might be original, but most of this drafty heap dates back to a twenty-third century rebuild.' He shook the flask ruefully, and she realised that he wasn't quite as sober as he tried to appear. 'Knew I should have just taken the bottle.'

'I suspect you've had more than enough already today,' she replied tartly.

'Sweetheart - I haven't even gotten  _started_ yet… this is nothing. I'm stuck here for another six weeks on "family leave" to sort out the mess my father left the finances in - I have every intention of making the process as painless as possible, and that, my beautiful Maya, means being as pissed as possible for the duration.' He gave her a speculative look and leaned a little closer, until he had his hands resting on the railing she sat on, one placed either side of her bottom. 'Of course, the time could go a lot more pleasantly if the company was amenable…'

The scent of brandy on his breath was strong, but not unpleasant. His sheer physical presence was rather more overpowering. She'd fended off boorish cadets and young officers before - it was par for the course for any young woman with two of everything she should have, after all. But Harlock… Harlock set every nerve she had on high alert - although in this case, the adrenaline rush wasn't so much saying "fight or fly", but suggesting strongly that she just wrap her legs around those slim hips and surrender to the inevitable. The deep, longing ache pooling in the lowest part of her stomach and between her legs seemed to be in total agreement. She had to resist the urge to wriggle away from the intensity of the sensation.

_Face it… you like the dangerous ones, her inner demon whispered._

'You're more than a little drunk,' she said primly. 'I couldn't possibly take advantage of you in this condition.'

He sniggered. Actually sniggered, whilst still looming over her, leaning closer. 'I'm sober enough to consent to a pretty girl - especially one who can stand her ground and give as good as she gets. It's a refreshing change. And a surprise - you look so demure dressed like that.' He leaned so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. 'Though I prefer you in a wet shirt covered in suds, bent over my bike…' he whispered into her ear, before pulling away again to look into her eyes.

She gulped. 'What makes you think I won't just slap you senseless?'

_Breathe_ …

_Bent over my bike_ … Oh. The image  _that_ conjured up…

_Breathebreathe_...

She loved the lazy smile that his mouth adopted at her sudden blush. 'You don't want to slap me.'

'Bet?' she countered, meeting his gaze, wondering who the hell she was trying to convince.

'I never gamble,' he whispered, his mouth capturing hers on the last syllable.

* * *

He tasted of brandy. Sharp, rich and decadent - but smooth, deceptively intoxicating. She should have pushed him away for his effrontery, but instead she leaned into the kiss he took, and indulged herself by running her fingers through his dark hair, and yes, it was as soft as she'd thought it would be, the fine strands flowing over her fingers without resistance, like fine silk. His hands he kept on the railing, imprisoning her between his arms and his body, so that the only escape - even had she wanted it - would have been to tumble off backwards.

She was a willing prisoner, her lips parting to admit his teasing tongue, an intimacy she'd never invited from any other young chancer, having restricted  _their_ access to chaste kisses.

Not this one. He didn't wait to be asked, but took what he wanted, plundering her mouth with a delicate brutality. She essayed a trial of her own, shyly slipping her own tongue past  _his_ defences, and felt him groan in response. His hand moved to the small of her back and pulled her closer until she could feel the hard length of his sabre-rifle pressed against the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

That last broke the spell somewhat, and she shifted awkwardly, and would have taken that backward tumble if he hadn't caught her, and gently tugged her towards him and onto her feet. The withdrawal was like a bucket of cold water thrown over her - a sudden return to sanity that she actively resented. The small distance between them was a gulf that cut her in two, as though for a brief moment she'd been a part of something greater - not two people, but one.

'Gawd. Some look out you are, Harlock - the whole bloody village could have waltzed in here whilst you had your tongue down her throat.'

Tochiro's mellow tones, loaded with amusement. Blushing furiously she pushed Harlock's hands away and whirled round to see the speaker strolling out from the sacristy, naked to the waist, t-shirt and jacket draped over one shoulder. Annelise skipped out from behind him with a blushing, sickly smile and bolted for the door.

Maya turned sharply on her heel to look at the unrepentant rogue, who stood with his hands in his pockets, a satisfied smirk on his too-beautiful face. His lips looked full and slightly bruised, she noticed with her own sense of satisfaction. But she rounded on him anyway. 'You were on  _guard_..?' she asked witheringly. Her tone was a warning, but he either didn't notice or ignored it anyway.

Her fallen angel had the temerity to shrug. 'Kind of. The least a friend can do, to keep a weather eye out. Her mother can be a bit handy with a rolling pin…' he trailed off, and a wary look appeared in those stormy eyes.

'So what - that was just a distraction?' He opened his mouth to reply, but Tochiro's snigger behind her changed her mood from elation to indignation. Without hesitation, she let her hand fly towards his face and land an open-palmed slap on it that actually made him take a step back to recover. 'You shameless…  _pirate_!' she hissed at him. She shook off his attempt to grab her arm and gave him a hard shove, clearing her way so she could flounce past him and out of the chapel.

Outside, she leaned against the cold stone of the outer wall to get her breath back, and settle the churning of her stomach. A couple of deep breaths, and she did start to think she might have been a little hard on him. Especially when she remembered how it had felt when he'd pulled her closer… Then she heard Tochiro's giggle, at odds with his sexy tenor as he spoke.

'You know - everytime I think you can't screw things up any more with that girl… What the hell were you thinking?'

'Shut the fuck up. This is all  _your_ fault.' By comparison, Harlock's voice was hoarser, far less melodic, and he sounded rather petulant. She smiled. Well, so he should…

' _My_ fault? I wasn't the one who decided to play tonsil hockey with the Ambassador's daughter - how is it my fault you couldn't keep your mind on the job at hand?' A long pause. 'Oh shit… you've really got it bad, haven't you? I'd thought this was just another itch you needed to scratch, but you're not going to be able to fuck this one and walk away, are you?'

There was the unmistakeable sound of flesh hitting flesh, a startled "oof" and the sound of a body hitting the floor. 'You bastard - what was that for!'

'You don't talk about her like that!'

'Seriously - you're ready to deck me over a girl? Whatever happened to bros before hos?' Another thwack. 'You fucking idiot - that was my lip! No - don't bloody well help me up, I'll find my own feet and my way out. For fuck's sake though - find her - or a willing little milkmaid - and get laid already - you're impossible when you're this cranky. Sheesh. I know you get all stressed out coming back here, but take out your temper on some other poor punchbag next time. Try Mamoru - he's more your size.'

Booted footsteps, heading purposefully in her direction, accompanied by a torrent of muttered imprecations in what she assumed was his native Japanese. But there was nowhere to hide, and she had to stand pressed against the wall as a five-foot-something thundercloud stormed out of the chapel. There was scant hope he wouldn't notice her, and he stopped, looked her up and down, and sighed.

'He's an idiot - just so you know. Stubborn, arrogant, hot-headed and a total pain in the arse - but never breaks his word, he's the best man I know, and if you can stick his bullshit out long enough to work that out for yourself, he's worth the effort.'

She stared at him silently, not sure what she should say.

'Ah. You're pretty enough - but can you go the distance? Whatever - break his heart, I'll break your legs. Are we clear, darlin?' This time he wasn't smiling.

Mouth suddenly dry, she nodded.

'Tochiro!'

The thunderous bellow from the chapel preceded the handful of bootsteps that heralded its owner reaching the doorway. Slightly stunned, she watched as Tochiro's beatific smile spread back over his homely face, and he scuttled off down the corridor, starting to whistle before stopping to touch his split lip.

Harlock stood in the doorway, filling it, and they stared at each other for what felt like an age, before she turned and walked away with as much dignity as she could manage.

So she didn't see the speculative smile which played around his sensual mouth as he watched her walk away.

* * *

Her father received a small mountain of work, which kept them both occupied for the next few days, and her host was conspicuous by his absence at meal times.

'Had to go into Bayreuth to see the family lawyers,' Mamoru told her when she asked over breakfast. Once the ceremonies were over, her father, having found out that everyone else headed for the kitchen to eat, insisted on joining them.

'No sense in running around after only two people,' he'd told Mamoru cheerily. 'Unless you'd prefer the annoying guests kept at arm's length?'

Mamoru had laughed at that. 'Doesn't bother me. It's a refreshing change to see an ambassador who isn't precious about his creature comforts - are you sure you're in the right trade?'

'Right business - wrong family.' Her father and Mamoru shared knowing looks, some in-joke she wasn't privy to.

She reached for the bread rolls and snagged a crusty white out from under Tochiro's quick fingers, sticking her tongue out at him when he pulled a face at her.

'Maya!' Her father's amused voice held just a slight note of censure. She bowed her head in a vain attempt to look contrite.

'Sorry, father.'

'For the face pulling or nicking my breakfast?' Tochiro asked, deliberately dropping her in it even further. Mamoru snorted into his coffee mug trying to hide a smile, and his wife, Miranda - a lovely woman a good ten years older than Maya, with hair a slightly deeper shade of gold, clipped him round the back of the head, causing their daughters - ten, eight and six years old - to giggle.

'You,' Maya told Tochiro sniffily, 'are a bad influence. And I'm saving you from having to let that jacket let out - you've had three rolls already this morning.'

He grinned, and it was impossible for anyone - her father included - to censure him, which the scamp probably counted on. 'Well, one of us has to like their food - how the hell Harlock got so tall given the way he picks at his dinners is beyond me. Luckily a lot of girls like a bit of meat on the bones, right, Liesl?' He patted Annelise on the backside as she wandered past with the coffee pot, and got a glare from her mother at the stove for his pains.

'You do know there's such a thing as sexual harassment?' Mamoru pointed out.

Tochiro pouted for a moment, then beamed. 'S'alright - Annelise - don't you worry about it - I won't press charges!'

Maya had to take a bite out of her roll to hide her giggles, her father rolled his eyes and Mamoru sighed. 'So help me - what did I do to deserve you two back on the doorstep?'

'You're the only family member who'll put up with us?' Tochiro hazarded. 'Dad did kind of hint about the don't darken-my-door thing last month, but he was joking. I think…'

'Don't be too sure,' Mamoru retorted darkly. But he smiled. 'Baka.' He put his mug down. 'Seriously - how long are the pair of you here for? I know the Fleet granted Harlock six weeks, but you've only got a couple of days left, and I know for a fact the timetable over at the dockyards off Titan is being moved up in light of recent events.'

'I'll fly out later in the week,' Tochiro replied. 'All joking aside, we do have to take the Yukikaze out on an extended test flight - dad wants the new drive put through its paces ASAP. Thought we could tie it in with a mission the long-range Explorer Corps ran past us - they think they found a signal coming from a region of space we haven't settled yet - didn't match anything in the records, so it's either a long-lost colony, or…' his grin - if possible - grew even bigger.

Mamoru groaned. 'Not  _that_ old chestnut again?'

'What old chestnut?' Maya leaned over the table, ignoring her father's muttered "elbows" uttered without looking over the top of his newstab.

'Aliens!' Tochiro beamed at her gleefully. 'Just think - could be a dying race of ethereal alien beauties, waiting to be rescued by a group of virile, handsome young men, to revitalise their dying race…' he finished on a yelp as the contents of the cooling coffee pot Annelise was removing from the table were unceremoniously dumped in his lap. 'What the hell was that for?'

'Accident,' she smiled at him, flashing her dimples. Grabbing a towel from Miranda, he grumbled under his breath as he mopped up the spill. Annelise caught Maya's gaze and shrugged, before giving her a conspiratorial wink and tripping off with the now empty pot.

'I wouldn't get too excited,' her father drawled. 'Maybe they'll be  _male_ alien beauties?'

Maya choked slightly on her roll, and Tochiro sat with the wet towel in his hand, staring in horror at her father.

'Daddy - why wouldn't Tochiro-san like boy aliens?' Mamoru's eldest - Aurora - spoke up, a frown on her normally sweet face.

Maya couldn't stifle the giggle at that, and even Mamoru laughed out loud, though he tried to turn it into a cough when Miranda glared at him. He stood up and reached for the dripping towel Tochiro was holding in his hand. 'And on that note, before you corrupt my daughters, I think breakfast is over.'

'Did I miss much?'

The familiar drawl from the doorway made her turn round, and sure enough, Harlock - in uniform for once - stood leaning against the stonework, arms folded on his chest. From the amused glint in his eyes and the ghost of a smile hovering around his mouth, he'd been there for a while.

'Probably not,' Maya replied as sweetly as she could. She allowed Mamoru to pull her chair out for her, gentleman that he - at -least - was. She walked to the doorway and the lanky, tousle-haired figure filling it. 'You do have a tendency to lurk, don't you?' she added, throwing his words from the chapel back at him.

He smiled at her, and her annoying heart skipped a beat. 'At least I have my clothes on…' he added.

_If he was going to hand her these lines on a plate_ … She decided to let him have both barrels. 'That's a shame - it's amazing how many faults I can overlook when you don't have a shirt on…'

He leaned down so he could whisper in her ear as she walked past: 'Sweetheart - it wasn't my pecs you were eying up - I think you'd prefer me in rather less than a shirt…'

'I'm not your sweetheart,' she pointed out in her most reasonable tone, wishing she didn't blush so easily.

'Yet,' he murmured as he strode past her. 'Anything left of that, or did the human dustbin there clean it all up as usual?' He dropped into a chair and placed his feet on the table, before they were pushed off by Annelise's mother.

'Might be a couple of rashers left - why bother leaving you a plateful the way you eat? It's like watching a bird peck at a worm…' Tochiro grinned over to his friend. 'Maybe if we just pureed everything in alcohol…'

'I do  _not_ drink too much,' Harlock retorted. He reached for the plate the cook handed him and began stuffing it away with an enthusiasm that gave a lie to Tochiro's complaints. 'I just manage to drink you under the fucking table - but that's because you can't hold it worth a damn.'

'Papa says you're not supposed to use words like that!' Elena, the middle girl, stared wide eyed at her young uncle, and Maya stopped to watch the quiet scene to see how he'd react.

He put his cutlery down and pushed himself away from the table. Leaning down, he opened his arms and all three little girls almost sprang into them, squirming and elbowing each other to get into his lap.

_Well, at least it's universal_ … Maya thought with a silent giggle.

'Quite right too.' He settled Elena on his left knee and Katy on the right with Aurora on the very edge. 'I'm not sure why your father allows you to be in the same room with such a terrible influence on my darling nieces. Now - who's going to punish me?' The little girls giggled and he was soundly kissed on both cheeks. 'If your papa agrees - grumpy bear that he is - who's for a riding lesson when I've finished my breakfast?'

This prompted squeals of "Me! Me!" from the trio, and he unleashed a sweet, dazzling smile on them that made her heart melt to see.

_They adore him_ … she thought, watching them chatter and crawl all over him as he tried to finish the plate in front of him.  _And he's more relaxed with them than he is with anyone other than Tochiro_ , she noticed.

'Papa - may we?' Katy asked her father, giving him a wide-eyed long-lashed pleading look that would have melted the hardest heart.

'On lead-reins this time, Katy.' Mamoru addressed this to his daughter but was looking at his half-brother, who nodded. 'Elena - if I catch you trying to jump anything bigger than two foot, you're grounded for a week.'

'But Prince Rupert can jump three feet from a standstill…' the eight year old pouted prettily. Aurora - who considered herself far too grown up for such arguments, was already on her way to get changed.

'But you  _can't_ , given that you broke your arm last time when you went over his ears, Ellie. I'll put them all down to a reasonable height,' Harlock assured his brother. 'And you, miss - it's my ass on the line if you disobey your father! Have a care for my hide if not your own!' He smiled at her fondly, and Maya's heart decided to start somersaulting again.

'Weren't we supposed to discuss the  _finances_...?' Mamoru asked as Harlock stood up and stretched, before gathering up the small fry. Maya frowned slightly as the odd stress he put on the word, then shrugged it off inwardly.

'Later. Much later. I need to have a think first.'

'What's to think about?' Mamoru asked as Harlock - two little blonde angels and Tochiro in tow, left via the outer door to the courtyard.

'Whether this place is worth selling my damn soul for,' Harlock replied quietly as he passed, only barely loudly enough to Maya to hear. He stopped in the doorway and flashed her a smile that almost had her joining his little retinue of admirers on the spot. But the look in his dark eyes was far more concerned than he was letting on. 'Fancy a ride?' he asked, all innocence. 'I'm sure with have something in your size a novice can handle.'

Tochiro, in the process of following his friend out of the room, spluttered and was elbowed by Harlock in the side of the head for his pains.

'I'm sure you do,' she replied smoothly. 'But I have work to do - my father's correspondence…'

'Can wait a while.' The treacherous bastard looked up briefly from the tablet he was reading the morning news on. 'It's a lovely day, Maya - and we're rarely on a planet like Earth where you can enjoy the outdoors.' He didn't, she noticed, even have the decency to look her in the eye whilst sealing her fate for the morning.

'But -'

'Oh please come, Miss Maya! Please! It'll be fun. ' The little girls tugged at her sleeve, and outnumbered, she sighed her agreement.

'I'll need to get changed.'

Giggling happily, the girls ran back to their uncle.

'The outdoor school is just past the stable block. Can't miss it.' Harlock told her. 'Just listen for squealing!' he winked at her, and escorted his charges out with shooing motions, Tochiro trailing in their wake.

* * *

Mamoru rounded on the ambassador as soon as the younger crowd were out of the room. 'Justin - what the hell are you playing at? Are you  _trying_ to throw your daughter to the wolves?'

Justinian Rosenbach, distant cadet scion of the Harlock family, laid his tablet down on the table and gave the younger man a look that would have rivalled the current head of the clan for innocence. 'I'm sure I wouldn't know to what you're referring, Okita-kun.'

'That's a bouncer, and you know it. I love my little brother, but he's too young, hot-headed and frankly can be a bit of a twat - most of the latter by design, since he really prefers keeping people at arm's length. He and Tochiro are as thick as thieves, but heaven knows, the little guy's more likely to egg him on than rein him in. Maybe in a few years…'

'We don't  _have_ a few years, Mamoru.' Rosenbach took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Earth's been protected from most of the unrest out there, but that's changing almost daily - what started as a nostalgic movement revering all things Earth-born is rapidly getting out of hand. I was a part of the Gaia movement from the beginning - we tried to establish ground rules for travel to the Solar System and Earth - but there's a more militant faction gaining ground on the council who want to cut all support and ties with the colonies. That fat cardinal is one of their lackeys.'

'But what - '

'Mamoru - Earth might be one of the last places of safety if war breaks out between the colonies. I'd like Maya somewhere safe - and Sebastian and I often talked of how it might be if our children hit it off. Harlock was a quiet child, but I remember - even if Maya doesn't - how he used to look out for her. He's impetuous, but he has a good heart, and I'm not blind to the interest.' He snorted. 'She tries to be so proper but she can be a handful when she wants to be. I saw how she looked at him from the first moment I saw them together.'

'Is that why you brought her? An old pact between fond parents?'

'Hardly. But I'm not one to let an opportunity pass when I see it. Maybe they'll be good for each other - sure as hell he won't have it all his own way with her - and vice versa. She needs a strong hand.' He sighed. 'I'm afraid for her safety, truth be told. There have been threats against members of the Gaia governing council and their families.'

'Sticking two firecrackers in a box is hardly the way to stop a fire,' Mamoru pointed out. He narrowed his eyes. 'And how the hell is a serving officer supposed to protect her? He'll be away most of the time.'

'But she'd have a valid reason to stay on Earth,' Rosenbach pointed out reasonably. 'Her brothers were born in-system, but we were stranded on Metabloody when her mother went into labour with Maya two weeks early. Technically she's colonial born. It's not public knowledge yet, but the Council intends to enact the first part of its exclusion act in about six weeks. Any colonial-born inhabitants of the inner and outer solar system worlds will be forcibly deported back to their birth worlds if they don't leave of their own accord once their travel visas expire.'

'I'd heard rumours, but I didn't think it would come to this so quickly… But Maya's your daughter - surely…?'

Rosenbach shook his head sadly. 'I could play that card - but what precedent would it set for the Elite to set one rule for themselves and another for everyone else? I argued against the Act, but predictably my opponents shouted me down precisely  _because_ Maya would be deported with the rest.' He sighed unhappily. 'I haven't had the courage to tell her yet - but if it comes down to it, I'll go with her. Once on Metabloody we can probably arrange for her to move to one of the agricultural worlds - Mistral or Herise.' What he didn't add as that the colonial situation was so fraught, even the travel between systems outside of the direct influence of the former Solar System Alliance was getting problematic. Scarce resources made for closed borders.

Mamoru ran a hand through his hair. 'Does Phantom -  _Harlock_ \- know you're making fast and loose with his future? You should know, he's not one to take kindly to be backed into a corner. If he suspects you're playing him…'

Rosenbach threw his head back and laughed. 'He didn't tell you that he was the one who invited the pair of us to the funeral?'

Mamoru frowned. 'Come again?'

Rosenbach picked up his tablet and tapped it into life to pick up reading where he'd left off. 'Somehow, he got wind of the deportations. This whole thing was his idea.'

Mamoru sat back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his face. 'Why that sneaky, underhanded, manipulative son of a bitch…' he said admiringly, shaking his head. 'She'll make his life a living hell if she finds out,' he continued, smirking slightly.

* * *

The pace of life on Old Earth - at least in this idyllic backwater - was a pleasant change to Maya, who'd spent so much of her youth travelling from planet to planet first with her family as a whole, until one by one her brothers wet first to University, then found their own paths in life, until it was just her and her parents, and then just her and her father. More than a week passed before she even felt the need to travel as far as Heiligenstadt in the company of Miranda and her daughters, and the longer flight to Bayreuth by flier she begged off, preferring the quiet of the countryside either on horseback as her childhood skills returned, or on Harlock's old trail bike.

The problems of the increasing unrest of the colonies was far from her thoughts, at least until she came down to breakfast one morning and found the adults - guests, staff and family alike - all glued to a screen watching a broadcast on the main news channel.

'What happened?' She watched as silent footage replayed: a massive industrial dockyard wracked by a series of explosions, and what looked like hundreds of ships exchanging fire, or vanishing with an effect similar to time-lapsed photography as their warp drives kicked in - long trails of light that remained long after the ship generating them had vanished.

'Happened last night, Earth time,' Harlock replied around a mouthful of bacon and eggs. 'An attack on the Zone Industries dry dock around Castlemaine. They came out of warp right on top of the scaffold, and boarded it. Must have had inside help, since they had the codes for the docking clamps and came in during a shift change.'

'Stole over three hundred ships - most of them smaller destroyer class warships, but several transports as well. This is just a mop up of the diversion,' Tochiro added, an uncharacteristically sober note in his melodious tenor.

'I'll need a secure line if you have one?' Her father was talking to Mamoru, who nodded.

'The Graf's study. If you'll follow me?'

They left, leaving Maya alone with the two young men.

Tochiro shared a look with his friend. 'Need me to prep the Yukikaze?' he asked. 'We might find this nice little holiday cut short…'

'Weren't you due back three days ago?' Maya asked. Her hand collided with Harlock's as they both reached for the last sausage. With an elaborate wave of his hand and a bow from the waist - how he managed it seated as he was… - he relinquished his rights to the spoils. She grinned and helped herself.

'I kind of had a bit of leeway, given that we weren't exactly on active duty anyway.' Tochiro replied. 'But you're right. I couldn't have put it off much longer.'

'Prep her,' Harlock said quietly. 'But unless this escalates beyond the Castlemaine system, they won't be calling on the reserves just yet.'

'You're not worried about being called to the front lines?' She watched as he struggled to find the right thing to say.

'I'm a junior officer, on attachment, with command of an experimental ship. There are plenty of ships primed to head out before they need to call on the likes of us,' he opined eventually. His tone was flippant, but something in his gaze as he stared down at the worn, scarred surface of the ancient oak table suggested he was far from fine with the situation.

'You  _want_ to fight?'

Tochiro pulled out his sidearm and began to dismantle it, studiously avoiding the pair of them.

Harlock shrugged. 'It's what I trained for. Hell, it's what we as a family are best at.'

She arched one delicate golden eyebrow. 'Poppycock. Father isn't bloodthirsty - neither is Mamoru…'

'Warriors come in a lot of flavours,' Harlock replied, finally raising his eyes to look at her. 'There's a family legend says when there are two brothers there will always be "one for the battlefield, one for the hearth". Some of us are born to protect. Some born to fight.'

'And die?' she asked, in a small voice.

He nodded. 'Not many of us die of old age in our beds in this family. Even my father found a way to remove himself from this existence before his time.'

'His plane crashed,' she pointed out reasonably. 'An accident.'

'But not, you'll notice,' Harlock replied with a mirthless grimace, 'in his bed. Or anyone else's for that matter…'

'Your grandad,' Tochiro nodded sagely, not looking up from delicately autopsying his pistol. 'In his twenty year old mistress's bed as the story goes, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, and with a smile on his face…'

'...and the mother of all boners,' Harlock finished for him. They shared a grin before Harlock noticed Maya's slightly wild-eyed blushes and flushed. 'Erm…'

'Don't!' She held up a hand to forestall the inevitable apologies. She stood up to leave and Harlock stood. She waved him back to his seat. 'I think I'm getting used to being an afterthought to the words coming out of your mouths…' She beamed at the pair and sashayed out.

Tochiro waggled the screwdriver in his hand at Harlock. 'You know, I can get to like her. She has a bit of a mean streak…'

'She's sweet.'

Tochiro spluttered. 'Sweet?  _That_ girl? Didn't she beat your time for the hill road run on that bike two days ago? By a good three minutes?'

Harlock shuddered. 'And given what I know about that track, I had my heart in my mouth when I found out she was trying it. ' He grinned. 'Mind you, she's got guts. I like that.'

'Nice ass too… though her tits are a bit small for my tastes.'

'Good job you're not in the market then,' Harlock told him sourly, glaring. 'I need to talk to Mamoru about a few of our little issues. If I'm not out in half an hour, rescue me from a fate worse than death?'

Tochiro sniggered. 'Hell no. Serves you damn well right.'

'You're all heart… Where's my backup when I need it?'

'Please - I'm the best friend you've got!' Tochiro smiled warmly at him. 'I just don't see the point of dragging you out of all the messes of your own making.' He laughed out loud as Harlock left the room, giving him the finger over his shoulder.

* * *

There was a full moon that night. Maya opened the windows fully in her room to let the cooler night air in, but there was no wind to stir the lacy curtains.

Or to cover the sounds of something scrabbling against the stone walls somewhere below the balcony she stood on. Grasping the balustrade, she leaned over as far as she could, and pulled back with a shocked gasp as something large and very dark moved in the shadows, making its way with alarming speed up the wall towards her window. She dashed back into the room, looked around frantically, and spying the carafe with water in it on her bedside table, grabbed it, ran back and hurled it down as close to the mystery climber as she could.

It missed by inches, shattering on the ivy-covered stone and showering the intruder with crystal shards and water.

'For fuck's sake, you mad cow - it's only me!'

She peered down again, just as the moon came back out from behind a cloud, illuminating a familiar face. 'Harlock?' Idly, she wondered if there was another jug of water she could throw. "Mad cow" indeed…

'What the hell are you doing?' she called down. She had to pull away as he shimmied up the final few feet and hauled himself up onto the small balcony, landing less than elegantly as he dropped over the balustrade. He shook his head to try and clear his hair of water and bits of carafe.

'What does it look like?' He strode into the room and picked up a towel from the bedspread where she'd left it. 'What were you trying to do - scar me for life?' he held up a finger, dripping blood from a small cut. There was another on his left cheek next to his long nose. 'Got a comb? Before I end up with a scalp full of cuts?'

She sat down on the bed and pulled her satin dressing gown closer around her as she waited for him to remove the worst of the shards from his hair. Eventually, taking pity on him, she dragged him into the bathroom and switched on the lights. 'Sit!' she gestured at the closed lid of the toilet. 'Let me do it.' She got to work on his collar length hair as he obediently took a perch on the suggested item. ''What were you thinking, sneaking into my room at night?' He growled as her comb caught a tangle. 'Do you ever brush this?'

'I didn't exactly sneak in... ' he pointed out. 'Sneaking up to it however… Ow!'

'Hmmpf. Sophistry and you know it. Hold still you big baby.' She attacked another glittering snarl and dropped a shard into the sink. 'There.' She put the comb down and stood facing him, her hands on her hips.

'I thought it might be… romantic.' he muttered the last word, and dropped his eyes - a bad habit he'd got.

She wanted to scold him, but there was a warm sensation in her stomach at his words. 'You could have fallen - how far up is this room?'

He snorted derisively. 'Fallen? Hardly - except when people chuck my best crystal at my head. There are hundreds of fingerholds for a half-way decent climber, and I know most of the routes up the walls.' He raised his eyes and smiled at her. 'It's one hell of a night - I wondered if you might like to go for a ride?'

'Ride?' The thoughts that flitted across the inside of her skull at that were totally unfit for public consumption. She grabbed at the neckline of her dressing gown, holding the two sides shut even though there was little chance of it falling open without help.

'My old bike's a bit small now - I had a bit of a growth spurt at seventeen…'

_No kidding_ she thought, eyeing up the sheer length of him. Even sitting down his head wasn't too far below hers.

'...so I got Tochiro to sort out a new one. He finished it before he took off for orbit. Wondered if you might like to come along?'

_Oh. Bikes?_ She was briefly deflated. Until she saw the challenge in his eyes and the smirking half smile playing around the corner of his sensual mouth. But if he thought she'd go that easily… 'What makes you think I'd take you up on the offer?' she asked, sniffing and sticking her nose in the air.

The lazy smile that he wore when challenged spread across his face. 'Maybe because I watch you… when you're trying to be the dutiful ambassador's daughter… so proper, so helpful… but you don't light up until you're doing something society would frown on - like riding - or hosing down - a powerful machine. Or playing with Mamoru's little hellions… or staring at naked men in cold mountain pools…' He stood up gracefully and leaned towards her, his nose almost in her hair. 'I've always watched you. Even as a little girl, you liked adventure, and a little danger.'

'Watching me? And that's not remotely creepy?' She reached out to push him away because he was far too close. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her bare neck and her earlobe, and it sent shivers of anticipation down her spine.

'You need to cut loose. I can't promise to be a perfect gentleman…'

_Please don't_ …

'...but I can promise you'll be safe with me. I'd never hurt you.'

Those sherry-dark eyes were looking straight into hers for once, and there was a raw appeal in them she could not ignore. The inner man laid bare for her to see for the first time. Her mouth suddenly too dry, she nodded. Once she managed to swallow she squeaked out: 'I'll get dressed. Wait for me outside.'

He looked pointedly at the window. 'You know… it's easy to climb  _up_ this - not so much going back down…' he pouted.

She laughed at him. 'I meant the door, idiot!' She gave him a push in the right direction, and caught his amused smile as he turned. 'Honestly!'

* * *

When he finally brought the bike to a gentle stop, she recognised the spot instantly as the small glade she'd found him cavorting naked in with Tochiro over a week ago. He held his hand out to her when she dismounted, and despite it being utterly unnecessary, she accepted. He'd already removed his own helmet and placed it on the grass, and she followed suit, shaking her long hair out.

The moon shone brightly above, reflected in scattered multiplicity in the splash pool of the waterfall. Only the constant fall of water over stone and the distant hooting of a hunting owl disturbed the night - there was little to no wind, and the trees were silent.

'It's lovely,' she breathed, turning on the spot to look around the glade. In daylight, and distracted by the other sights on offer, she'd taken little notice of her surroundings.

'According to legend, although most of the forest around here only dates back to the Era of Reconstruction in the twenty-third century, this part was once a part of the Old Forest that once covered most of central Europe. The Schwarzwald was only a small part of it - it extended all the way to the Baltic coast, once.' He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face a stand of massive, wide trunked trees that stood on the far side of the grove. 'Look - it's a trick of the light, and needs the shadows of a moonlit night to see it, but if you look closely at the bark, it looks as though a woman's face is staring back at you, as though she's about to step right out of the tree!'

She stared at the largest tree - an ancient oak with shaggy bark eaten away in places to leave a hollowed out cavity tall enough to hold a man. Sure enough, as she stared, it did look as though the entrance to this dark temenos was guarded by a tall, long limbed woman - the curves of the trunk suggesting sinuous lines that looked a little like a stylised, naked woman, in three quarter profile. A slender branch reaching for the sky resembled an outstretched arm, and the "face" was a blank oval with eyes and mouth suggested by hollowed shadows.

She could imagine those black eyes staring right at her, and despite the warm night, she shivered.

'Sorry,' he whispered in her ear. 'Didn't mean to scare you.' His chin almost touched her shoulder as he leaned over it.

'You didn't,' she whispered back, turning her head just enough so that her lips almost brushed his cheek. She felt him shiver slightly as her breath touched his cheek. 'Besides, we have a chaperone…' She glanced back at the oak tree, and he followed her gaze with a not entirely humorous laugh.

'Well since your duenna is watching over us, I suppose I am on my best behaviour.' He let her go, and strode over to the edge of the pool. When he knelt at the edge and placed a hand in the cool water, she walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

'If this is where you make some suggestion regarding a dip and it being fine because neither of us brought a costume…' she warned with a smile.

He just grinned up at her. 'Nah. The leather trousers chafe if you don't towel off properly afterwards…' he deadpanned. Before she could do more than huff her indignation at him, his hand came back up out of the water, trailing droplets and holding a bottle of the local vintage. 'There's a couple of glasses in the under-seat storage - would you mind?'

There was also a packet containing a selection of cold cuts and half a loaf plus some cheese. With the aid of his belt knife, this, along with the wine, was shared between them. He spread his jacket on the ground for her to sit on, and lounged beside her, the white skull and crossbones on his black tee stark and vivid in the moonlight. She reached out with the hand that didn't hold a doorstop sandwich in it and placed it on the skull, tracing the lines around the eye sockets, smiling inwardly at his intake of breath.

'So… space pirate Harlock - how does that work? I'm no physicist, but even I know there aren't any real pirates in space - something about matching insane velocities and closing distances?'

'There's never been a boarding in open space, true. But there are bandits who operate in-system and close to planetary orbits to intercept ships coming into space-docks or planetary landings. Trouble is, it's a mug's game. Most trade routes are well protected, and response times so fast that most of these idiots don't get away. Smuggling pays better to be honest, and even that's a tough life.'

'Why do I get the impression you have an idea of how to get around that?' she asked. She sipped the cold riesling and regarded him over the rim of the glass.

'Tochiro and I came up with a few ideas when we'd a few drinks one night.' He smiled, looking genuinely amused. A rare look. 'Mostly around having some totally kick-ass weaponry, and a ship that could make a Cosmo Tiger look slow - that close in-system, fighters are actually useful. You need a ship that can deal damage and take it - and is insanely quick and manoeuvrable…' he grinned wolfishly. 'Sadly when we calculated how much it would cost to actually  _build_ a ship like that…' his face fell, and he looked so young and woebegone, she leaned over to peck him on the cheek, her lips catching on soft stubble.

'Never mind. you'll just have to settle for cosmic explorer. Besides - you just don't  _look_ like a pirate…'

'You don't think I could rock an eyepatch?' he laughed with her, holding one hand over his left eye and squinting at her with the other.

'I think you'd totally nail the look,' she told him, laughing. She brushed her hair out her face.

Lounging next to her, he smiled. 'I'd much rather…'

She shushed him with a finger to his lips, laughing again when he simply took it between his teeth and nibbled gently, even though her stomach decided to turn flip flops at the sensation. 'If you value your ability to reproduce, you will  _not_ finish that sentence the way I think you were going to…' she ordered, retrieving the ravished digit reluctantly.

'Ouch. Tough lady.' But he let her have that lazy smile again, his eyes twinkling. The moon was high overhead but looked enormous, the light flooding the small glade. 'More seriously though, I did have an ulterior motive…'

'More ulterior than a romantic midnight picnic…?' she drawled back at him. But the look on his lean face was serious, and she settled down so she could face him.

With a deep breath, he continued quietly. 'How much do you know about the current anti-colonial legislation passing through the new Council?' he asked.

She thought carefully. Her father had been involved in several talks with the colonial worlds - she wasn't blind to the growing unrest on colony worlds that simply couldn't support their populations anymore. A solution, however, wasn't anywhere near close. 'A little. But I work mostly in communications for the diplomatic staff, when I don't act as father's hostess…'

'About a year ago me and Mamoru had an idea to put some cash back in the coffers,' he continued. He grimaced. 'Not a move we were proud of - we persuaded father to put the castle back on the old tourist route. Plenty of wealthy idiots and connected assholes out there keen to reconnect with their roots, as they see it.' He sneered. 'Still, we need the money… this place just swallows every credit that comes near it. But it turns out to have had a fringe benefit, because on a couple of occasions we overheard some juicy gossip. Some people really don't know when to keep their mouths shut it seems. One of those titbits is the reason I asked your father to bring you along to the funeral.'

Puzzled, she stared at him. 'He'd probably have brought me anyway…'

He smiled. 'I couldn't risk him not…. Though I'd have thought of something…' He took a deep breath. 'Article 17. The deportation and disenfranchisement of all non desirables in the solar system. To be defined as anyone of adult age born on a colony world outside this solar system. All funds confiscated, no rights, just shoved on the first available transport back to the planet you were born on. If you're lucky, they might make sure the captain won't just open the hangar to space and fill up again for another run…'

It took a moment to sink in. 'But…'

'Yes. That  _would_ mean you. Even if they allowed your father to go with you, he'd risk losing his own position to help you. Trust me - he'd do it in a heartbeat. He's a good man. But he has enemies in the Council, and some of them won't scruple about using your status to get to him.'

'How long?' she asked in a small voice.

'Two months at most. Maybe less. There's a lot of anger out there in the colonies… most of the terraformed planets are failing badly, but there's nowhere for their people to go. Some more militant groups have been wreaking havoc in system demanding resettlement… protests were all well and good but bombs and kidnappings are becoming more common. To go along with that the anti-colonial sentiment back home is growing. It's getting worse all the time.' He paused. 'Frankly this act is just a political move designed to get backs up - there aren't more than a few tens of thousands of people living and working in this system who'd be affected, but  _someone_ wants to send a message.'

'But what,' she interrupted, 'does this have to do with me and you?'

He hesitated and looked away briefly. Then he looked her straight in the eyes. 'If you were married to an Earthborn national, you could stay. Especially if that national was both an officer and a member of the ruling elite - albeit one with no seat on the new Council, but still…' he almost gabbled the last part of the sentence, and kept his eyes fixed on her face.

She stared at him wondering if she'd heard correctly. 'Did you just propose?'

It was hard to tell, since the moon went behind a cloud just then, but she thought he blushed. He nodded dumbly.

'Father would never let them...'

'He'd try.' Harlock's voice was gentle but husky. 'But he has enemies who'd crucify him politically for it. He's a moderate. A voice of reason in a world where a lot of people have more to gain by being unreasonable.'

'You hardly know me!' She burst out. 'I hardly know  _you_ …'

He smiled at her outburst. 'Actually, I've known you since you were little. On and off.'

'How on earth did I forget the creepy stalking?' she snapped. He flinched and she berated herself silently. 'Sorry.'

'Justified,' he replied evenly. As to not knowing me that well…' his laugh was self-deprecating. 'Tochiro would probably tell you that that isn't a bad thing.'

'Probably?'

He shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she noted wasn't reflected in his dark eyes. 'Okay. He'd  _definitely_ tell you that. But I'd hoped…'

'What? To win me over? In a few days or weeks?'

He lowered his gaze again. A bad habit when he was pressured. 'I know. I haven't made the best of impressions…'

She couldn't help but take pity on him. 'Well, I've seen worse…' she said lightly.

He looked up hopefully. 'Really?' She took her cue from him at this point. She had to look away. 'Oh.' he sounded so deflated, she made herself look closely at him, trying to get a reading from his usually so shuttered demeanour.

'Why me?' she asked eventually, none the wiser for her attempt to read him.

'Because there's a strength - a light in you that's like a beacon.' He laughed harshly, she suspected at himself. 'I'm drawn like a moth to a flame. Beauty -  _that_ I can resist. Just ask Tochiro. But not you. Burn my wings to ash and I'd still find myself crawling towards you. I just can't seem to help myself.'

That set her back on her metaphorical heels. She regarded him warily from under lowered lashes. He looked thoroughly miserable. 'Is that why you've always kept your distance? Or tried to?'

He nodded. 'Well… that, and I'm not that sociable anyway. I just didn't want to look a complete idiot. Which, I'm guessing, was a total failure?'

She looked into his eyes, and saw a stormy turbulence in their dark depths she was at a loss to explain. The honesty had cost him dearly - he shifted uncomfortably as she stared, though he didn't break her gaze this time.

'Would you want me, never knowing if it was just because I needed your protection?' she asked softly.

'If that was the only way, then yes.'

'Idiot. It would tear you apart,' she whispered, knowing it for the truth.

'Some things are worth the pain.' He reached out his hand and brushed an errant lock of hair out of her eyes, letting the silken strands fall over and between his long fingers. 'But you wouldn't do that. I think you'd tell me to go to the devil first. In that, we're alike. We don't run into a safe harbour when we're in danger.' He smiled at her. 'Look at it this way, I come with that draughty old pile of credit-sucking stone down there, and most of the land as far as the eye can see, three annoyingly cute nieces, an irritatingly chirpy and efficient half-brother…'

'... a heterosexual life-partner with sloppy impulse control who appears to be symbiotically attached to your hip, and a tendency to just shoot your mouth off without thinking?' she finished. She smiled at him, and was rewarded with another of those heart-melting one-sided smiles in return.

'Well if you put it like that…'

He'd been honest with her, despite the effort it cost him to open up even as much as he had. She owed him that much in return. 'I may be attracted to you. I don't love you. Yet.'

'Yet is hopeful…' He moved the hand that was toying with her hair to her cheek, and she leaned into the tentative touch. 'It doesn't mean "never".' He leaned closer, and once again she found her mouth being claimed by his sensual lips, and his tongue - wickedly independent it seemed - demanding entry. She granted it willingly. He was, as ever demanding, yet gentle. Never taking more than she was comfortable giving, yet at the same time she was acutely aware that if she did surrender, he was more than capable - and willing - to take everything.

_Typical pirate_ … she thought to herself. A large hand curled gently around one of her breasts, and she bit back a moan at the sensation. Being what she could only charitably describe as "neat" in that area, she hadn't felt the need for a bra, and only the thin silk of her shirt lay between the sensitive skin and the palm of his hand. She was certain she could feel the heat through the thin cloth, and the sensation almost distracted her from the slow descent he was making down her neck with his mouth, lightly licking and kissing her neck, trailing across her collarbone where it was exposed by the open neck of her shirt…

He pulled away so quickly she felt slightly affronted as well as disappointed. 'Harlock, wha-'

'Ssshhh.' He placed his hand over her mouth. 'Quiet.'

He was listening attentively, she realised, to something outside of her hearing at first. She could hear the distant hoot of an owl, and something - probably a large hedgehog - snuffling in the undergrowth.

Then she heard it. A low pitched whine, getting closer.

'A drone,' he whispered. He lips brushed her earlobe as he spoke and she shivered. 'This is private land, there shouldn't be anything flying here.' he cocked his head on one side. 'Military - the engine note's unmistakeable. Shit.' He stood up and pulled her to her feet.

Gone was the languid shyness. There was something dangerously feral in the way he scanned the glade. She could feel the tension in his body as he held her close - coiled, but relaxed - paradoxical perhaps, but nevertheless, he was for the first time in his element.

'Run for the rocks at the side of the pool - strip off and head into the waterfall. There's a ledge behind it. Wait there for me.'

'Why?'

He sighed heavily. 'Heat seeking cameras.' He gave her a push. 'Go!'

She went. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw him run for the bike, grab his gunbelt from under the seat, and lope back towards her. In the shelter of the slick rocks, wet from the cool spray, he began stripping off. She turned her back, slower to do the same, feeling horribly exposed as she peeled off her boots and trousers, leaving her in thin panties and her shirt.

'All of it - unless you want to be riding back in wet clothes,' he hissed.

'I wasn't wearing anything underneath,' she hissed back.

'Oh, for crying out loud woman - what use would a couple of triangles of fabric and a bit of string be if I was planning on ravishing you?'

'About ten seconds head start?' she shot back. She heard him choke back a laugh.

'You underestimate my skill with a bra strap. Off with it, missy. In you go!'

She did as she was told, sensing the worry underlying his forced levity.

* * *

The water was icy cold, and she bit back a yelp as it poured down onto her exposed skin. Shivering, she shot through the curtain of water as fast as she could, and stood shaking on the narrow ledge behind the fall, dripping from head to toe, and still being dusted by the fine spray. She felt Harlock slip in beside her, and squeaked when his arms went around her, her back suddenly pressed hard against a lean chest.

Something else was pressed against the small of her back, and it certainly wasn't his holster this time. 'Apologies,' he muttered into her ear. 'This has to be the worst timing in history…'

'I can't hear that drone from here…' she said quietly, trying to tread the line between making herself heard over the sound of the water, and not attracting the attention of anything that might be listening. Military grade drones had notoriously sensitive equipment.

'I promise you, it's very real. I wouldn't make up a story like that just to get you naked.' But the opportunistic bastard licked the nape of her neck anyway. And dear God, her nipples were like tiny bullets… she only hoped he didn't slide his free hand - the one not holding his pistol - up to stroke them again. Her mind was already trying hard not to be distracted by wondering what it would be like to lose her virginity against the slick wall of the waterfall, if he held her against it… he was certainly strong enough, and if she wrapped her legs around…

She was suddenly very glad of the cold shower she was standing under.

'You were expecting trouble,' she accused, to take her mind off the feel of the length of an impressive erection nestled against her back.

'Ummm.' The non-committal response set her teeth on edge.  _Oh no you don't.._.

'Harlock…' she warned.

He took the hint. 'Mamoru found out a few other things during those guided tours,' he whispered in her ear. 'That attack on Zone Industries at Castlemaine was a set-up. They've sold the ships to a militant colonial group - the plan is to collect the insurance for the loss and still be able to make contract for the original customer. Highly illegal…'

'So this…'

'We suspected they were onto us. Mamoru's brilliant at following the money trail, but he was worried he might have been spotted lurking online. The bitch of it is another forty-eight hours and your dad would have been able to pass this onto the right authorities. I had a feeling there might be trouble when I saw Evgeni Zone's brother-in-law Alexei Nevich at the station in Bayreuth earlier today. Pompous little weasel is always around when his rat-faced CEO needs something cleaning up…'

'So you figured on a reason to be out of the castle?' she hazarded. 'I hope I'm not another distraction,' she hissed into his ear.

He kissed her cheek. 'Only to me. I didn't want you in there if anything went down. I just hope Mamoru got my message - daft bastard wasn't picking up earlier.' He let her go and stuck his head out of the falls. 'I think it's gone. Shake it off and get dressed - I need to get back to the castle. You can stay here if you prefer - it might be safer…'

She let him help her over the rocks back to the shore and their piles of clothing, too caught up in the drama to take offence when she ended up in his arms with her face on his chest and some very interesting anatomy almost in her belly button. 'I think I'll take my chances with you,' she replied. Grabbing her shirt she couldn't get it back on fast enough under his admiring gaze. In the moonlight his skin glistened as he moved, and her mouth went dry when he bent over to pick up his trousers. Oh my… he really did have the neatest, tightest ass…

She blushed, and busied herself with panties and trousers.

* * *

The electric motor on the bike had a silent mode in addition to the throaty roar which replicated a petrol engine. Clinging to Harlock's back as he raced the bike back down through the woods to the road, not even damp underwear could quite ruin the thrill. He guided the bike along paths that would have been terrifying at this speed in daylight, and did so without the lights, relying on the moonlight filtering through the trees, and, she assumed, an unerring memory for the route and its pitfalls.

So she'd relaxed her deathgrip on his slim waist by the time they reached the comparative safety of the road, because what could possibly go wrong on that surface - it was a straight run back to the Schloss…

Therefore it came as something of a shock when for no reason the bike slewed out of control, all power gone. She could hear Harlock swearing as he fought for control, but then she lost her balance as it corkscrewed, and she went flying off to the side, landing on the road and sliding painfully across the surface. She heard a crumpling sound and a heavy thud, and then night fell.

* * *

The first thing she felt was the chin strap of her helmet digging into her jaw, and a sense of claustrophobia. Scrambling to her knees she fumbled with the quick-release mechanism and gasped thankfully as she pulled the helmet free. Dropping it at her side, she looked around for Harlock and the bike.

The moon had gone behind a cloud, but she could make out a large hump in the road, that groaned slightly and moved. 'Harlock?'

She stood up carefully, her legs wobbling. Her thin jacket was torn, and she could feel grazes across what felt like most of her left side. She limped over to where Harlock was sitting up with a groan. She knelt beside him and helped his shaking hands with his helmet, setting it aside with a grimace. The visor had shattered, and something dark and wet slicked her fingers. Rather belatedly, she realised it was blood.

'You're hurt!' She reached out and tipped his head to face her. One side of his face was covered in blood, and she could see something sticking out of a gash that ran from his nose down across his left cheek almost to the chin.

'Went face first into a rock at the side of the road,' he replied hoarsely. 'Visor smashed. Funnily enough it's quite common for fighter jocks - almost got slashed a couple of months back in the same place when my faceplate smacked against the cockpit…' He reached a hand up to touch the gash, and winced as his fingers probed the wound. Tchhing at him, she pulled his searching fingers away. 'I'll need to take a better look at that. Stop fiddling with it!'

'Yes ma'am,' he replied meekly.

'What happened?' she helped him to his feet, and looked around for the bike.

'Total power loss. A jamming field at a guess. We're about a quarter of a mile from the drawbridge - guess we'll be walking the rest of the way.' The bike was in a heap at the side of the road a few yards further on - he must have ditched it. She helped him limp over to it.

'Not until I get that bleeding under control,' she told him sharply. 'There's a first aid kit under the seat - I saw it earlier.'

'Then help me pull the bike into the trees,' he ordered. 'I don't want us to be seen if they have anyone on lookout.'

Pull was right. The front wheel was buckled, and the bike a dead weight. Thankfully it wasn't far, and she helped him prop it against a tree, and grabbed the kit whilst he lowered himself onto a convenient fallen tree trunk. There was a small torch as well, and she took it to give herself some light to see by.

'Brakes locked when the power cut,' he muttered as she took a couple of antiseptic wipes to his face. 'Guess I should have listened to Tochiro when he said he still had a couple of bugs to get out before I could ride it…' He flinched, but didn't make a sound beyond a sharp hiss when she tugged the piece of perspex out of his face with some tweezers. She pressed a clean pad against the cut and ordered him to hold it in place while she rummaged for something to cover the wound.

'That's going to need a lot of stitches,' she told him. 'And expert work if you want to avoid it scarring…'

'Just slap something over it for now and tape it, 'he told her reassuringly. 'I can live with it. But I have to get into the castle.'

'Shouldn't we just call for help?'

He stood up, brushing off her attempt to make him sit back down, and strode unsteadily over to the bike. 'With what?' he asked, holding up the remains of the radio. 'Guess what it landed on…?'

She marched over and took it out of his hands. 'Hmmm.' She turned it over. 'Power source is undamaged. Just needs a transmitter…' She scrambled back to the road and came back with her helmet. 'These have short range transmitter/receivers for person to person on the bike,' she told him. She pointed to the small speaker in the side. 'Got a toolkit on this thing?' she nodded at the bike.

A slow smile spreading over his face, he reached for the seat storage and clicked it open. Reaching in he handed her a small box. 'You have a plan?'

'I have a plan,' she told him. 'I work in comms, remember? If I can swap out some of the damaged components, I can maybe get a message off - the question is where to?'

'The Yukikaze's in orbit,' he told her. 'If I give you the frequency…'

'I can get a message through - assuming Tochiro will be listening?'

'There's an emergency frequency,' he replied grimly. 'We have a contingency. Send an SOS, he'll do the rest.' He sat down weakly, and took a couple of deep breaths. 'This area's outside the jamming field. Stay in the woods, until he arrives.' He rattled off the frequency and she committed it to memory.

She sat down beside him and gently tugged the first dressing off his face. Thankfully the bleeding was slowing. Carefully she taped another over the cut, smoothing it down gently. 'You're still going in single-handed?'

He nodded. 'I have to - Zone'll be desperate, there's no telling what he might order done to cover this up. The man's a snake from a long line of cheapskating serpents. These are my friends and family. I have to protect them.' He gave her a weak smile. 'I forgot to ask if you were hurt?'

She smiled as brightly as she could hoping the cuts and grazes didn't show through her black jacket and trousers. 'Just a few scrapes, I'll be fine…'  _After a skin graft or two_ … she added mentally. She felt like she'd been dragged over a giant cheese-grater. 'I bounced.'

He stood up again, and helped her to her feet. 'I hate to leave you alone and unprotected…'

Maya gave him a tiny shove. 'I have plenty of long branches and some rocks. I'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about.'

He leaned down and kissed her again, gently caressing her lips with his. 'I can take care of myself. So long as you can get that signal out.'

'Count on it,' she told him. He gave her one last smile and turned away, limping back towards the road, and she watched the way he'd taken for several minutes after he'd vanished into the night, before she frowned, gave herself a mental shake, and got to work dismantling the remains of the radio.


	3. Chapter 3

Harlock forced himself into a ground-covering if somewhat painful lope back up the road to the castle, hugging the undergrowth whenever the already setting moon peeked out. As he reached the bridge he slowed and ducked into a convenient hedge. Concealed by the foliage, his right shoulder against the heavy stonework, he peered round the corner. The gates were open, and no lights disturbed the darkness, neither from the courtyard security nor the heavy leaded windows. The whitewashed walls however gleamed in the moonlight every time the moon came out from behind the clouds.

No cover on the bridge… but also no visible guards in the open gateway.

A flash of light at one of the widows from the right hand tower caught his attention and he glanced upwards. A torch, held by a figure walking along the main landing. The figure passed one window and then the second before passing out of view, the light fading, blocked by the man's body.

Tall. Thin… and wearing a flat, wide brimmed hat.

_Alexei fucking Nevich…_

Harlock swore under his breath, and dropped his hand to his holster, before remembering that his pistol - a fleet issue blaster - was currently useless due to the EM jammer.

He bit back a snigger. Currently. No pun intended… Heh. He'd have to remember that one when he saw Tochiro again.  _And he says I have no sense of humour_ …?

Voices, coming closer, brought his attention sharply back into focus like the snapping of a rubber band. Two men, sauntering towards the gateway from the first courtyard, silhouetted against the whitewashed stone as they stood in front of the wall to stare out across the bridge.

'... supposed to use to call for fucking backup? A couple of tin cans and some string? Amateurs…' The speaker had a high-pitched, nasal whine that immediately set the listener's teeth on edge.

'It's not like there's much opposition, chill. Whaddya afraid of - three little girls, a gaggle of women and some dickless diplomat? The only one who put up a fight was that slant-eyed half-breed bastard, and he crumbled when I stuck my gun in that little girl's face.' He laughed, braying through his nose like an asthmatic donkey.

 _Well,_ you're  _a dead man walking_ , Harlock promised the unseen speaker. Bastards must have grabbed the girls and Miri at home and dragged them here as leverage.

'Who let that fancy dickhead in the hat lead on this anyway?' the first man asked petulantly.

'He's paying, so I guess we just let him think he's in charge. There's enough of us here to keep a lid on the situation. But our orders are clear - this has to look right. No slip ups.'

'Why not just drop a bomb on the place?' Whiner asked. 'Save us the fucking trouble.'

'Orders. No witnesses, plus the Cardinal fancies a new hunting lodge - so we let Nevich do his thing with slant-eyes, and then we finish up the job - His Excellency wants it to look real messy - nothing better to whip up some public outrage than pictures of pretty little girls torn to bits in front of their adoring mama and papa before everyone gets killed by the dastardly colonial terrorists, right?' Donkey sniggered. 'Hey - toss ya for a go at the momma - she's a real looker…'

He  _had_ planned to sneak in quietly, he told himself. He  _really_ had, this time… But he was halfway across the bridge before the pair spotted him, and his flying tackle took down Donkey before Whiner could bring his rifle to bear. There was a sickening crack and Donkey was limp under him. Then he swept his long legs towards Whiner, taking him down with a muffled cry. The man went down with a heavy thump, and Harlock wasted no time in getting to his feet and kicking the man's weapon out of reach.

It landed in the remains of the moat several feet below with a splash, and he let out a soft "fuck".  _Could have used that rifle_ … But Whiner was trying to open his mouth and he couldn't waste time worrying about spilt milk. A well placed kick crushed the man's larynx, and it took him over a minute to choke to death, whilst Harlock checked him and his partner for ID or any useful weapons.

Nothing. But deft fingers felt for and found the tell-tale callouses from military hardsuits on neck and wrists.

Listening carefully for any signs that he'd been heard or seen from within the castle, he rolled the bodies down the slope to the moat by dint of a good kick to each. They landed with heavy splashes, but again, no-one seemed to notice.

Yes, I know… I should have just taken them down quietly… questioned them. But you aren't here, and no-one -  _no-one_ , threatens those girls or Miri… He smiled grimly.  _Have to stop doing that… one day I'll start talking to Tochiro out loud when he's not there and they'll probably just lock me up…_ But so help me my friend, I feel like I'm missing an arm when you're not around…

He picked up three throwing knives in their sheathes and weighed them speculatively. Their other weapons had vanished over the edge, and neither man had any ID on them. The knives went into a jacket pocket.  _Clothing's off the rack and hard used_  - offworld manufacture from the one label large enough to see in the moonlight. He recognised the logo. Enough plausibility if they get caught or left behind.

 _Or disposed of after the fact_ …

He waited in the shadows near the gates until the moon went behind the clouds again. Even in the shadows of the courtyard, he'd show up against the pale walls. It meant scuttling from one alcove to another and a quick limping sprint across to the empty fountain in the middle before finally reaching the door just past the alcove holding the old well, but heart beating, he managed it and the moon's betraying light could just suck it… Through the archway into the main courtyard, past the door to the chapel, and slinked towards the west wall.

The electronic locks were down, so his retinal scan was useless, and this meant that the doors failed safe - occupants could get out, but no-one could get in.

But he hadn't earned the nickname "Phantom" for nothing. As a boy his ability to sneak in and out of the place unseen as he chose had been legendary. One reason for which had been spending an awful lot of time in the library, reading the family histories… which included the blueprints and guides to the refurbishment of the schloss back in 2257, when the largely derelict building had been rebuilt and reoccupied by another in a long line of sideways inheritances. His hand searched the wall near the doorway until he found the slight depression he was looking for. With a sharp click, the entire doorway slid into the wall, and he ducked inside - literally, since the damn thing was only six foot high. He'd almost knocked himself silly only last week, forgetting he'd grown a bit.

A similar depression on the other side closed it again behind him, and The door was unlocked. He pushed it open carefully, but sensing no-one lurking in the corridor behind it, slipped quietly into the building and closed the door behind him.

First port of call, weapons… something in Ancient Projectiles would do nicely. His steps took him unerringly towards the museum wing, and a display case he knew would have just the thing…

* * *

The ground floor of this wing was deserted, as he'd expected. If Nevich - as he suspected - was after the files on the Castlemaine assault, then his target would be in the rear part of the building, where the private rooms - and Mamoru's office - were located. The front-of-house had been designated the public access area, and housed the highlights of the tour… one of which was the room Tochiro had laughingly dubbed "The Armoury".

The door was never locked, and in fact was still wide open when he reached it. Only the emergency lighting was working - photoluminescent strips along the whitewashed walls cast a sickly green glow over the world, like wearing low-light goggles… But it was enough to see by, and he walked past the displays of flintlocks - muskets and pistols. Three racks of swords from various periods lined another wall - probably the only authentic pieces in the place, judging by the state they were in, since every single blade looked like it had been nibbled on.

His goal was a display case beyond the large arch, under the window. He leaned over the glass top, staring at the contents. Five large pistols resided in all their splendour next to samples of their ammunition and small information cards giving their provenance in fifteen different languages.

Well, at least when the power was on… With a grim smile he unholstered his blaster and smashed the lid. With one gloved hand he reached in carefully and lifted out the centrepiece of the display, replacing it with the useless blaster. He hefted the pistol in his hand and his grin grew bigger. Damn thing weighed almost two kilos, and was over fifteen inches long.

" _1848 Colt Dragoon…"_  Tochiro's voice in his memory, and he remembered the way his friend had lovingly caressed the blued steel barrel.

' _It's about as authentic as everything else around here,' Harlock snorted. 'If it's more than a hundred years old I'll eat my right nut.'_

' _It's a spiritual successor,' Tochiro had retorted, placing the piece back in its case with reverence. 'And you just can't improve on a classic…'_

He reached in with his free hand again, this time to pick up the two boxes of .44 cartridges that had been placed next to it. 'Well, you can when someone offended your purist sensibilities and made a replica of the cartridge conversion instead of the original black powder…' Harlock murmured under his breath. 'Thanks for that, grandpops…' He moved closer to the nearest light strip and gave the pistol as close an inspection as he could. The guns were kept in good working order, but it never hurt to check… He quickly slipped six cartridges into the chambers and slipped the boxes into his breast pocket. It was a slightly loose fit but at least it fitted into his holster.

A noise in the corridor alerted him, and he ducked behind a pillar. Footsteps - no, boots - getting closer, and treading warily. He unholstered the pistol and pointed it at the door.  _Cocking the damn thing will sound like a fucking pistol crack_ , he thought sourly.  _Just hope I get the drop on the guy…_

The booted steps hesitated in the doorway, and then entered the room, heading unerringly for the display case he'd just trashed. A quick peek around the thick pillar revealed the figure of a tall man, who leaned over the smashed case with a muttered curse.

Harlock cocked the dragoon at the same time he stepped out of hiding, the muzzle pointed at the back of the other man's head. 'Hands where I can see them,' he ordered in a hoarse whisper.

'Harlock?'

Recognising the whisper, he lowered the gun. 'Mamoru.' He stepped fully out into the open, and watched Mamoru straighten up and turn to face him.

'I should have known this was your work - you do know there's a manual release on this? The case might be alarmed, but these replicas aren't valuable.'

'Are you going to pick fault with my burglary technique or grab something you can shoot with?' Harlock hissed back. He took a closer look at his brother's face. 'I see you still don't keep your guard up…' Blood trickled from a lip split both top and bottom, and his right eye would have a large purple bruise around it by dawn.

'I was tied up at the time,' Mamoru retorted. He rummaged carefully in the case and shook some shards of glass off a business-like hand cannon from the late twentieth century that the display card had referred to as a Desert Eagle. Like its ancestral partner, it too had the ammunition to hand. As Mamoru lifted the boxes out, Harlock's lips thinned as he spotted the bleeding welts around the older man's wrists. 'What the hell happened to you?' Mamoru continued. 'Your face…'

'Fell off the bike.' he muttered. 'Went into a skid when we hit the EM jamming field…'

'We?'' Mamoru glared at him. 'Maya…?'

'She's fine. A bit shaken and grazed.' He touched a hand to his still-covered cheek. 'Patched me up. I left her trying to raise Tochiro on the radio outside the radius of the field.'

'There's probably a lot you're going to have to explain to Justin after this. 'Mamoru busied himself checking and loading the magazine. 'You know, when Tochiro and you suggested updating this little room I thought you were being a bit frivolous…'  _slapclick_.

'Where is Justin?'

'Hopefully still in his room. I haven't seen him. They did, however, grab us from our beds and hauled us up here. Some walking corpse shoved a gun in Katy's face to make me hand over the codes for the computers…'

'Corpse.' Harlock corrected. 'He bragged about that trick in my hearing.'

'I knew there was a reason I love you,' Mamoru told him with a grim smile of his own that - if the two of them had ever stood side by side in front of a mirror - he would have known matched Harlock's.

'Yeah. Not out loud - I get enough grief with people thinking me and Tochiro are a couple… Any idea where they're holding Miri and the girls?'

'In dad's old office, at a guess - they hadn't dragged them far when they brought them in to parade in front of me. Oh - and there's one bald bastard who's mine - backhanded Rory and copped a feel of Miri.' Their shared grim smiles would have made hardened killers blanch.

'Help yourself, aniki. I'll happily deal with Nevich.'

Mamoru looked at the butt sticking out of Harlock's holster and frowned. 'Really? - there are two of these, you know?' He indicated the Desert Eagle in his other hand. 'Or are you compensating for something?'

'Never liked semi-automatics. They have a nasty tendency to fail to cycle.'

'Only if you're limp-wristing it,' Mamoru replied with a smirk.

Harlock glared at him. 'I'm more accurate with this,' he retorted sniffily.

'You're just an incurable romantic,' Mamoru replied with a grin. 'Looks over practicality every time.' He sighed. 'Just don't come whining to me when you run out of bullets…'

The two moved in tandem to the door, although any attempt at synchronicity experienced an epic fail as they both tried to be the first through it.

'I'll take point,' Harlock whispered. 'You should let me…'

'Baby bro - me first.  _I'm_  supposed to take care of  _you_ , not the other way round…'

'You will be taking care of me - what the hell do you think Miranda will do to me if anything happens to you? Besides - I'm the one with the military training.'

Mamoru grabbed him by the collar, and despite being a good five inches shorter, dragged him off to one side and took the point position, blocking Harlock from storming in front of him. 'You're the one with the survival instincts of a lemming. And I'm your big brother, so behave. Or so help me, I'll take great delight in calling you by your real bloody name in public for the next five years…  _Albrecht_ …'

'I'm your  _Graf…'_ Harlock hissed back, shaking off the restraining hand and trying to block Mamoru's path.

'Are you  _really_ going  _there_?' Mamoru stared up at him, his hazel eyes flashing with a dangerous light that rarely disturbed their normally tranquil depths.

Harlock flushed and looked away, glad the dim, greenish lighting would hide the blush.  _Treat your only brother like a hired lackey, why don't you - a real chip off the old block…_

He backed down and gestured. 'Fine. Be my guest.' He stood to one side to let Mamoru walk past him. His brother, he noticed, was holding himself a little stiffly, and favouring one hip. At a guess it wasn't just his face someone had gone to town on. The occasional catch in his breath when he inhaled suggested a rib or two cracked, and probably a kick to the lower back.  _Yeah… you keep forgetting that despite his quiet manner, he's still a Harlock… we don't quit._

 _And when you give a man a name meaning "protector", don't be surprised when he lives up to it_ …

As quietly as they could on the flagstoned floor, the two men went hunting.

* * *

Alone in the forest, Maya let out a very unladylike word as the torch slipped again. She picked it up and placed it back on the seat of the bike, and tried again to direct it at the circuit board she was trying to wire into a power source. Apart from her breathing, the only sounds disturbing the night were small rustlings and the breeze in the dark pines which lined the road. But even those started to take on epic proportions in her head as the minutes ticked by, and she dropped the circuit board twice and her tools three times when the undergrowth twitched as something small and furry scurried through. The last time she almost jumped out of her skin as an owl swooped down on soft wings to the accompaniment of a brief, crunchy squeak.

'Oh, get a fucking grip,' she muttered out loud. She fumbled around for the tiny soldering iron, and added another heartfelt "fuck" when her finger found it - via the business end. She had to stick the tip of her finger in her mouth to sooth the burn, and to try and remove the temptation to just keep going with a heartfelt cluster f-bomb. There was something rather satisfying about just letting rip with the profanity.

A snap behind her sounded like a pistol shot, and she let out a shriek - which was quickly muffled by a hand over her mouth. Frantically, she struggled, and tried to bite the fingers covering her mouth. The other hand which tried to hold her ended up with a firm handful of her left breast as she tried to struggle free.

'Quit wriggling you daft cow! It's only me!' hissed a male voice in her ear.

Her head was already en route to the offender, before she recognised the voice. What should have been the satisfying smack of her head against someone's nose was only partly pulled at the last moment, and the back of her head collided with what felt like a brick wall. The resulting 'Ow!' was in stereo harmony between a contralto and a tenor.

The hands holding her let go abruptly, and she tore herself free. Scuttling out of reach she tried to get her ragged breathing under control, and to get a look in the dim light at her assailant. 'Tochiro?'

He waved one had at her - the other was clutching his forehead above one eyebrow. 'God, woman - you have a hard head,' he whispered. 'And a mouth on you…' he tutted admiringly.

'But I haven't called you yet!' You couldn't whisper a disappointed wail but she almost managed it. She pointed to the radio parts.

'Is that what you were doing?'

She nodded.

'Nice idea. Thankfully, there's a panic button in Mamoru's house in the town - I didn't like the idea of them being outside the walls without protection, so put it in a couple of weeks back. I got there over an hour ago to find him, Miranda and the girls gone, and the back door hanging off its hinges. Figured they'd bring him up here, so hoofed it up as fast as I could with some friends.' He stared at her face for a moment. 'You've got blood…'

'Not mine,' she assured him. Then she realised the implication of her words. 'Oh. I mean, he's not that badly hurt…'

He grinned at her. 'S'okay. I know what he's like. Looking at that wheel the bike went arse over tits and he went out the front door?' He didn't wait for her nod. 'Gone up to the castle I'm betting. Grandstanding little arse… never does wait for me.' He sighed and reached over to pat Maya on her knee. 'You planning on staying here all night waiting for rescue, or do you want to see a little action?' He held out a pistol.

'There's an EM jammer…' she murmured, staring at it a little wild eyed.

A shrug. 'Figured as much - it's what I'd do. Hence you'll notice, this fires bullets. Fifteen round mag, don't use it all at once and never point at something you don't want to shoot…' when she still hesitated, her cocked his head on one side. 'You do shoot, right?'

'Targets,' she replied numbly. She took it from him with surprisingly - to her- steady hands. 'Didn't you say you didn't come alone?'

'Sent on ahead - I saw the light, came to take a look. But there's only four of us. The Yukikaze only has a skeleton crew. But I did bring some of our resident bruisers, just in case.' He stood up and offered a hand to help her to her feet.

'Don't you need a gun?' she asked. His holster was empty - she was presumably holding its occupant.

Another shrug. 'Ah… I'm not that great a shot with a handgun.' He reached a hand down to his other hip and she noticed the hilt of a sword sticking up. 'This, on the other hand…' He pulled it free of a wooden sheath and she had to admire the gentle curve of the katana in his hand as he held it up to catch the moonlight. 'Family heirloom, this - made from meteorite iron and - as it turns out - a hefty dollop of a metal not found naturally on Earth.' He resheathed it with a quiet snick, his fingers guiding it in without looking. 'So - what are you going to be - a damsel in distress, or a distressing damsel?'

She checked the safety on the pistol. 'My father's in there, and a family I'm rapidly coming to care a great deal for. I'm up for being distressing,' she told him firmly.

His smile could have felled even the hardest heart. 'Girl after my own heart,' he quipped. 'Let's go and rescue the lanky bugger, shall we?'

* * *

The long gallery on the ground floor was lit by the emergency strips at either end, casting eerie shadows on the white walls - just above head height along each wall was a collection of ancient antlers mounted on ornately carved stag heads, and the shadows thrown made it look as though they were walking through a tangled forest.

Both men hugged the wall, weapons in hand, and waited. From the third door along, about thirty feet away, they could hear voices.

'...checked the entire building. No sign of the brat and his boyfriend. Or the girl.'

'I'm not worried about a slip of a girl, and Oyama's in orbit. Keep the emitter on for now - I don't want any nasty surprises. Get working on that computer - we need to know how much they found.'

Harlock turned to Mamoru and both mouthed "Nevich…"

'Want me to shake The Bastard again? Those passwords weren't worth shit. Who downloads this much porn?' A frustrated sigh.

Mamoru noticed Harlock's smirk. 'You got Tochiro to put up those bogus files, didn't you,' he hissed into his brother's ear. Harlock's shit eating grin grew bigger. 'Figures.'

'...fine. Go get him. And as a punishment, let him have a taste of what's in store for screwing us around. Pick one of his brats and put a bullet in it.'

'Mine…' Mamoru whispered coldly, all trace of humour gone, his hand tightening on his gun.

'Don't get ahead of yourselves.' Nevich's voice, sounding very snappy. 'Start killing them now and he won't talk - what would be the point if he knows we'll just kill them anyway? If he thinks he's got a chance of saving them, he'll talk. No - no killing - yet - but feel free to break a few bones. Nothing like a kid crying to soften a father's heart.'

Harlock's hand on his brother's collar was the only thing holding Mamoru back, and he had to follow it up by pinning his brother to the wall of the doorway they were standing in. Despite Harlock's greater height, Mamoru was bulkier, and it took everything he had in the silent battle to hold him down. 'Now who's going off half-cocked,' he hissed. 'Back down or you'll get us both killed - and we don't know where they're holding the girls and Miri - start shooting and their guards might take them out.'

Mamoru sagged against him, all resistance gone. He opened his mouth to reply, but Harlock placed his hand over it and pushed him deeper into the alcove. Footsteps - only slightly muffled on the thin rug that ran the length of the gallery - were heading straight for them.

Thankfully their owner marched straight past, and headed up the narrow spiral staircase to the next floor, gun in hand. Like the brothers, he was armed with a projectile pistol, although his was of a more recent vintage.

Harlock let Mamoru loose and stuck his head out to take a look. The footsteps had receded at the top of the stairs, and low voices from the remaining pair came from the open doorway further down.

'Watch my back,' Harlock whispered. 'I'll get the girls and Miri.'

'I should…'

'We're two against an unknown force, aniki. At least two in there, and I've no idea how many on guard upstairs not counting the asshole who just went up. This gallery is a good choke point - there's no other stairway to the next floor in this wing, and I don't need surprises at my back. I'll get the hostages, and we'll get them clear. After that - we get to work.' Harlock smiled grimly. 'We both know I can be a lot nastier than you can. And I'm faster.'

'I'm counting on you, little brother. That's my family up there,' Mamoru replied softly.

Harlock's smile softened. 'Mine too, aniki. I'd give my life for them. You have my word - no heroics.' He waited for Mamoru's nod, then headed silently up the staircase.

* * *

Tochiro set a decent pace to the road, his short legs capable of a better speed than she'd have guessed, and she had to jog to keep up. They hugged the trees and undergrowth that lined the long straight drive, and after the third time of diving into a bush when the light brightened, she began to appreciate just how defensible the schloss was - assuming it wasn't already compromised. The straight road afforded little to no cover for vehicles - they would be visible for hundreds of yards on the approach.

Tochiro gave her a hand up out of the latest tangle of nettles, and she thanked her lucky stars for the lightweight leathers she'd put on for her midnight tryst earlier. 'I sent two guys off to the stables,' he told her, gesturing at the fork in the road which led off to the right. 'Hopefully no surprises from that side. Kavanagh and Khalsa are scuttling back this way - I guess they found something.'

Two men loomed in front of them in the dim light - the moon was sinking fast and the first faint light of dawn was beginning to spread its crepuscular glow over the sky.

'Any trouble?' Tochiro asked. The taller one - Khalsa, she guessed, from the long fall of his hair and beard, shook his head.

'No sir - but we did see two bodies in the ditch - not the captain. The gate's open, but no-one seems to be guarding the courtyard.'

Tochiro nodded. 'Figure on maybe three to five to guard the hostages depending on how they've split them. Two on the gate - sorry - in the moat… maybe another three on roving patrols inside. Maybe another two to take out the outdoor staff. I'm guessing Harlock's inside already, so we're four to maybe eight inside, and evens on the stables… good enough odds.'

'Five,' Maya reminded him. 'And what if they've overpacked?

He smiled at her. 'Then we're in trouble. And you can stay back unless we get right into it - Harlock would never forgive me if anything happened to you.'

'And yet,' she retorted, 'Here I am, right in the front row…' She smiled sweetly at him and he blanched.

'You're with the captain?' the other man - a shorter, stockier short-necked bruiser with red hair - asked. He ran an appreciative eye over her. 'Blimey. He knows how to pick 'em… I still remember that brunette on Hana…'

Tochiro coughed, and the other crewman elbowed his companion in the ribs. Maya just rolled her eyes.  _Men…_

'Captain?' she asked Tochiro as they made their way to the bridge. She looked up at the guarding lions standing on top of the pillars to either side of the road as they passed them. 'I thought he was only a lieutenant?'

'Title,' he explained, 'not rank.' He tapped Khalsa on the arm. 'Did you bring that meat cleaver with you?'

The crewman pulled out a large blade with a wicked curve.

'Good grief!' She stared at the blade, eyes wide. 'What were you planning on doing with that - hackingb them to pieces?'

Taking out the trash with extreme prejudice,' Tochiro told her. 'We can pick up some old fashioned guns inside, but I'd prefer not to get into a gunfight if we can avoid it. Too many chances to screw up and "collateral damage" isn't a phrase I'm fond of when family are involved. So I brought a few of our more…erm…  _adventurous_ crew…'

Kavanagh pulled out a bowie knife with a glinting edge. She swallowed hard. 'By adventurous you mean…'

'The ones no other ship will take,' Kavanagh smirked and winked at her. 'Fleet considers us a bit of a dumping ground for terminal fuckups who don't take orders, and borderline dishonorable discharges.'

'I prefer to think of us more as "finding our niche",' Khalsa added. A handsome, dark-skinned young man in his late twenties, he smiled at her. 'Not to mention we're all they could find who'll fly with the mad bastard.'

Kavanagh sniggered quietly. 'Captain's batshit crazy - but at least he's  _our_ kind of crazy…'

She filed that for analysis later.  _Obnoxious, yes. Introverted to a fault… Reckless, most definitely… but crazy? That implied a level of activity she'd yet to see… Harlock_?  _The man who rarely staggered down to breakfast before ten in the morning?_  Mentally she snorted. Obviously he was holding out on her.

'Stay behind us, miss. Keep your eyes peeled - that okay with you?' Kavanagh asked.

She nodded. Tochiro patted her bottom to get her moving again and she glared at him - a gesture she was sure he deliberately ignored.

'In we go boys!' he added in a cheery whisper. His katana was unsheathed in his hand.

'He enjoys this far too much,' Khalsa opined to his crewmate in a stage whisper. Kavanagh's only reply was a harsh chuckle and a quiet "not as much as the captain…"

* * *

'Perché ...il papa …. di …la Guardia Svizzera Pontificia…'

The voice came from the doorway of the second room. Harlock pressed himself against the wall just before he reached the landing and listened.  _Italian_?

'...unione con la Gaia…' The voices muted as the speakers entered the room.

His Italian was almost as bad as his German. Languages had never been his forté. But he could follow a little of the conversation.  _The old_   _Vatican Guard? Here_? They'd been retasked into the new Capitol Guard only a year ago when the church had relocated to Mars, to "foster closer ties" with the new order emerging in the Capitol. Rumours were rife that most of the world's religious orders were being swallowed up by the growing Gaia movement - falling membership in the wake of humanities mass diaspora to the stars following the twenty-second century's Kamiyo Project and its successors, and the problems attendant on keeping the faith on thousands of different worlds in three galaxies had led to a loss of focus and power that most were desperate to cling to.

 _Explains that fat pig in the red dress_ … He stuck his head cautiously round the corner to assess the lie of the land. No men were visible in the corridor's pale green light, and only one door was open, with voices still drifting out.

Behind the harsh tones of macho posturing, he could hear at least two of his nieces crying, both having reached the hiccuping stage.  _Katy and Ellie… Rory - Aurora - tended to be a quiet sniffler, not a blubberer._

His hand tightened on the butt of the dragoon as Katy's cries turned into a pained wail. His other hand crept towards the throwing knives he'd stowed earlier in his breast pocket...

'Son of a bitch - let go of my dau-' There was a sickening thump of flesh on flesh, a cry and a heavy thud. At that, he didn't wait. His long legs carried him up the stairs and to the doorway. A quick glance around the architraving showed three men in the room standing - armed with knives and cartridge pistols. Justinian seated, practically hog-tied to a chair, and Miranda in a heap on the floor, her face already purpling from a bruise.

One man holding Rory and Ellie, another holding Katy… One standing over Miranda, who was glaring daggers at her attacker…

The light glinted off the knife in Katy's guard's hand, moving towards the little girl.

Time doesn't always slow in combat. He'd often wished it did… But when you can move like lightning…

His throwing knife buried itself in the throat of Katy's assailant. The man holding the other girls took a bullet between the eyes, Harlock having cocked and fired in one smooth motion, and the butt of the pistol then connected with the man standing closest to the door over Miranda, followed up with Harlock's not inconsiderable six and a half feet of lean muscle landing on his sternum as he hit the floor.

The crunch was rather satisfying. And he wasn't even breathing hard.

He stood up, and helped Miranda to her feet. 'Get them free,' he told her curtly, handing her one of the other knives. He didn't wait for her to acknowledge, and moved back to the door to keep watch. He'd made enough noise to warn the men with Nevich, but hopefully Mamoru would hold them off long enough.

He risked a quick look back over his shoulder to check on the prisoners. Thankfully Mamoru had picked a woman with a good head on her shoulders. Miranda quickly cut the girls' bonds, and freed Justin. Whilst Miranda comforted the little girls, Justin joined Harlock at the door.

'I don't think any father's ever been more grateful that someone was taking a midnight stroll to compromise his daughter,' he said with a wry smile, which Harlock returned. Justin assayed a stretch. 'I'm too old to spend two hours tied to a chair.'

'Think you can hold a weapon?' Harlock nodded in the direction of one of the discarded guns. Justin picked one up and checked it, then rummaged in the former owner's clothing for ammunition, which he duly pocketed.

'I think I should be able to remember which end's which,' he replied sardonically. 'I counted ten, not including that little pissant Nevich,' he added.

'Make that five,' Harlock replied with a grim smile. 'I took out two at the gate and these three. I heard two with Nevich - one of which-' he kicked the man nearest the door with a booted foot 'is no longer a problem. So we have three on the loose and two in the office unless you missed any.'

'They sent two down to the stables,' Miranda piped up from the bed. She was sitting on the edge, Katy in her lap and the other girls huddled close. 'I heard them talking when they dragged us up to the castle. Told them to take care of anyone they found.'

Harlock spared a look for the little group. Miranda was bruised and tearful, but resolutely clutching her little brood. Justinian swaying slightly on his feet but otherwise unharmed and grimly holding onto the pistol he'd picked up.

'Right. Justin - stay with them - lock the door behind me and don't open it to anyone in who isn't me, Mamoru or Tochiro. Mamoru's downstairs - we'll take out the rest and try to secure the place. I need that EM jammer knocked out, then I can contact the Yukikaze - Maya was going to try to repair the bike radio but the chances of Tochiro picking up the signal are slim…'

'You two need to talk more,' Miranda interjected sharply. 'Those goons tripped the alarm when they broke into my house - Tochiro installed an emergency transmitter to send an SOS to the Yukikaze when it's in orbit - said he expected trouble, although he wouldn't say what, and opined that it was "just a precaution".' She glared at Harlock. 'And after this is over, you and I are going to sit down, young man, and have a little chat about why he thought it was necessary and why my family have been dragged out of our beds and threatened at gunpoint and slapped around in the middle of the night… and so help me, if you put so much as a  _scratch_ on my husband…' she paused. 'Phantom, honey - what happened to your face?' her voice softened and she regarded him sympathetically.

'Face-planted on a rock when the bike shut down hitting the null EM field,' he muttered, wondering how many more times he was going to have to explain it. He resisted the urge to rub at the covered wound, which throbbed and stung when he spoke. 'Smashed the visor into my cheek. It's fine - just a scratch. Maya patched it up…' he trailed off in response to Justin's cleared throat beside him.

'I take it my daughter was  _on_ this bike when you parted company with it?' the older man asked very, very quietly. Harlock swallowed hard, wishing he could bottle Justin's knack of making grown men feel as though they were tucking their tails between their legs without raising his voice.

'I need to mop this up,' he muttered. He made a break for the door and the stairs, stopping when Justin reached a hand out to him.

'Harlock… I …' His hand fell away. 'We need to talk. Later.'

Harlock nodded, and left at a run.

* * *

Mamoru was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. 'You were taking so long, I was getting worried. I heard a couple of thuds, but nothing to bring our guests running,' he said quietly. 'Miri? My daughters?' his hazel eyes practically screamed worry.

'Everyone's alive. A bit scared and some bruises. I left Justin with them - they'll be safer up there- those doors are two inches of seasoned oak and the walls are solid stone easily over a foot thick. Any movement?'

Mamoru shook his head. 'Still swearing about Tochiro's firewall. They're still peeling it away - though Nevich might be getting twitchy enough to send out his goon in a minute or so to look for his boyfriend…'

Harlock hefted his pistol. 'According to Miranda and Justin there might be three wandering around without a minder - two went to the stables - I suspect the other is wherever they stashed the null-generator. And Tochiro should be en route, and he won't come alone.'

'How do you want to play this?' There's only room for one of us in the doorway.'

'I'll take Nevich and his friend- you hang back.'

'I want that bastard myself…' Mamoru growled softly.

Harlock cocked the dragoon as quietly as he could, wincing at the sound which felt as though it echoed in the empty corridor. 'I'll leave you something to play with, but we both know this is what I'm best at. Just be careful who you shoot at - you know how Tochiro tends to just run into a room without looking…'

'Shouldn't be a problem,' Mamoru smiled slightly. 'I'd have to drop my aim to hit him…'

'And I'll tell him you said that,' Harlock told him. 'Wish me luck.'

'Break some heads,' Mamoru told him, but Harlock was already limping down the corridor.

* * *

Creeping around the castle by dawn's early light was not as much fun as sneaking out of it had been, Maya reflected as she stared at Kavanagh's broad back. Exciting, yes, for any given value of "ohshitohshitohshitwe'regoingtodie", every time she jumped at a shadow or - once - a tabby cat streaked across their path in pursuit of something small and squeaky.

Tochiro raised his hand as they huddled in the shadows of the archway between the two courtyards. She peered around the bulky crewman in front of her, and saw a tall man crossing the courtyard, the silhouette of his face distorted by night vision goggles, making him look like some batrachian monstrosity.

'Odd place for him to be coming out of,' Tochiro mused, almost under his breath. 'That door leads to the tower and that's only ever been used for storage as long as I've been visiting…'

'But the top room would presumably be high enough up to blanket the exterior of the castle with a null-EM signal?' Maya asked. 'Any lower and the walls are too thick - you'd never get coverage over the surrounding area…' she trailed off, a thought occurring.

'Maya?' Tochiro gave Kavanagh a shove to move him out of the way.

'I should have realised - you'd never blanket the  _interior_ with these new low-level emitters unless you…'

'...had placed a few boosters around the building,' Tochiro finished. 'Shit. Should've thought of that myself… They won't want to compromise the computers because they want to know what's on them, so a burst emitter wouldn't have worked…'

'Sounds like you have a mole,' Khalsa added quietly from behind Maya's shoulder.

'More like a security problem related to letting all and sundry walk around this heap clutching over-priced guidebooks,' Tochiro muttered darkly. 'Right - Maya, Kav - with me. We'll take out the emitter. Khalsa - watch the courtyard. If that big bugger comes back, keep him occupied for me, will you?'

'No problem.' Khalsa's dark, bearded face was split by a ruthless, toothy grin as he hefted the curved blade in his hand. Tochiro patted him on the arm as he trotted past, and led the way into the small door at the foot of the tower.

Maya, close behind, had only just placed a foot on the bottom stair when the shots rang out.

* * *

 _Here's the thing about doors_ … Harlock through sourly as the bullet ricocheted off the stone next to the architraving and missed his head by an inch.  _Sliding doors give you no cover leaving you standing in the doorway with the equivalent of your cock hanging out in a blender, the ones you pull open shield you but make it impossible to get into a room, without standing in a doorway etc, and the ones that you push open… ditto etc._

'Missed me!' he called out as a second bullet thudded into the thick oak.  _Gotta love that olde-timey construction…_ Come on… he urged mentally. Stick your damn fool head out to see where I am… you know you want to… The next bullet whizzed out of the partially open door and thudded into the rug-covered floor, scoring a trail along the carpet. 'That's persian, asshole - you will pay the damages…'

'Brave words from someone hiding behind a door,' Nevich called out, his slight accent always more noticeable when he was under stress.

'Why don't you come out here and we can discuss my bravery and your tendency to use little girls as punchbags? Or do you prefer hiding behind your rent-a-thugs and trashing my carpets from a distance?' he taunted in reply.

'If you have a dog you don't bark yourself. Anton - kindly take care of the trash, would you?'

Footsteps, heading towards the door. The door that opened  _into_ the corridor…

The momentary hesitation as the walker placed his hand on the door was all Harlock needed. He put his weight behind it and shoved as hard as he could. The resulting stumble, crack of shattered cartilage and a heartfelt "fuck" told him he had the opening he needed. He moved as fast as he could into the room - a tall man in nondescript clothing was staggering backwards, blood running down his face from the nose he was holding in one hand, his weapon hanging from his fingers. It was the work of a moment to follow up his first attack with a well placed kick to the groin and the butt of his own pistol to an exposed temple. The thug went down as though he'd been poleaxed, with a satisfying thud.

Then it was just Harlock and the slim man about Mamoru's age who sat at his father's desk, his hands poised on the keyboard. 'I'd keep your hands there if I were you, Nevich,' Harlock snapped, covering the effete snob with his pistol. 'I'd hate to put a hole in that fancy silk shirt…'

Nevich sneered. 'You wouldn't dare.'

'You've broken into my home, threatened and injured my family, and appear to be trying to hack our network. I'd say right now, I'd dare, and be well within my rights.'

'Looking for stolen information,' Nevich snapped in reply.

'Of illegal activity - which still doesn't excuse your hired thugs slapping a six year old around. So please - give me a reason to just shoot you now and not hand you over to the authorities.'

'You'd have shot me already if you were going to. You're a posturing youth - you don't have the balls.'

Harlock let his best feral grin spread across his face, and enjoyed the warm, fuzzy glow as Nevich's face drained of colour. 'It's not  _my_ balls you need to worry about, Alex. Those little girls have a father - and he's specifically requested a little alone time with you.'

Nevich's handsome face twisted into a deeply unpleasant sneer. 'Seriously? Are you threatening me with your  _accountant_?'

Harlock shrugged, never taking his eyes off his prey. 'Trouble rather the tiger in his lair, than the sage amongst his books…' He cocked the dragoon. 'Stand up slowly, Alex, and move towards the door - hands above your head.' When Nevich reached for his hat he wagged a finger at him. 'Leave it. Unless you want a hole in it.'

Nevich stood and moved away from the desk, hands raised. 'You think you're so bloody clever, boy? I won't be indicted and you know it. The word of some provincial little Earther lordling against a board member of the largest supplier to the Fleet…'

'Who said I was arresting you?' Harlock replied evenly. 'By the time Mamoru's finished with you I doubt there'll be enough left to use as a dishrag.' He gave the other man a push towards the door as he walked past. 'Though I might have him find out who your tailor is first - black silk rather suits me and I always struggle to find anything in my size…'

'Smart-mouthed little punk… you and yours think you're so damned superior, don't you? After this little stunt I'll end up  _owning_ the Titan shipyards you and the Oyamas take so much pride in.'

'Talk, talk, talk…' Harlock pushed him through the doorway. 'Aniki - present for you!' he called out.

He looked away from Nevich for a fraction of a second at most, but it was enough. Nevich dropped his hands and before Harlock could react, Mamoru fell to the floor clutching his shoulder. A small holdout was smoking in Nevich's hand, and he was already turning and firing, at close range the bullet tearing into Harlock's left arm. Distracted by the pain, his aim was wildly off, and the dragoon's bullet whizzed harmlessly over Nevich's head as he sprinted down the corridor, vaulted over the prone figure of Mamoru, and out into the dawn.

* * *

Tochiro shoved past Maya and gave her a push in the small of the back. 'Up the stairs - take out that emitter. Kav - go with her.' He unsheathed his sword and it glinted wickedly in the reddish light. 'Looks like me and my old family retainer here have some business to attend to.'

'With a sword?' Maya asked, exasperation creeping into her tone. 'Shouldn't you take a gun to a gunfight?'

He grinned at her. 'They have to hit me first, sweetling. Unlike Harlock, I'm not a big walking target with a "shoot me" sign on my head.' He ran back into the courtyard.

Kavanagh shrugged when she turned to look at him. 'Don't ask me - I just work for them,' he replied to her unspoken question. 'If it helps, he really does have a knack for avoiding getting shot…' He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. 'Up you go, miss - and don't walk around any corners or stick your head into doorways until you've taken a quick look. And keep that pistol up and ready. Shoot first, apologise later. It's unlikely we'll run into friendlies.'

'I'd rather not run into anyone,' she muttered. 'How come you get to go behind?'

'Because if anyone gets past Khal, it's better if it's me who gets shot in the back, miss.'

 _Can't fault his logic_ … She made her way cautiously up the worn stone steps, feeling as though she was about to leap out of her skin at the slightest noise, but thankfully, only their own footsteps disturbed the unnerving silence.

Once she reached the top, she peered around the corner carefully. The door to the battlements was open, and she was about to break cover to move towards it when Kav's hand on the back of her battered jacket hauled her up sharply.

'I'll take point from here miss,' he whispered. 'Just in case we've got a canny one.' He slipped past her, and she pressed herself against the wall at her back, shaking slightly. Some midnight tryst this had turned out to be… a little excitement and making out with a handsome swain was one thing…

She heard a scuffle, several thuds and a gurgle, the sound of something heavy being dragged across a floor, then a long drawn out bubbling attempt at a scream, and silence. She stuck her head back round the corner. Kavanagh stood in the doorway, wiping the blade of his huge knife on a cloth. The fabric came away dark-stained and dripped slightly onto the flagstones.

'Okay, miss. You can do your thing now,' he said cheerily. She walked over slowly and entered the crenellated rooftop a slow step at a time, looking around suspiciously.

A large pool of something wet near the door, in front of a foot long cube of humming electronics. More wet marks - two parallel lines wavering over to the battlements. A little more dark wetness on the wall. She shivered.

Kavanagh patted her on the back. 'Don't worry miss - no-one'll find the body down there - bloody long drop that side into the old moat I gather, and it's a right old thicket.'

'By design?' she asked. 'I didn't know you were familiar enough with the layout to avoid dropping it into the courtyard…' She knelt in front of the emitter, careful to avoid treading in the pools of blood.

He grinned. 'Now you come to mention it, it was more luck than judgement… luckily - I'd never hear the end of it if I dropped a body on the captain's head.'

'Couldn't do much damage from what I've seen so far,' she muttered as she got to work undoing the front of the emitter. 'You should be more worried about getting the clean up bill from Mamoru.' She smiled up at Kavanagh, a little forced, but thankfully he didn't seem to notice. He winked at her.

'Ah. you're a good sport. I've known lasses who'd faint at the smell and sight of blood.'

Since it was making her stomach churn a little, she didn't reply to that. 'Distantly it may be, but I'm still a member of this family.' She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard, refusing to throw up. 'We don't do fainting…'

She removed the front of the box and tipped it back to get a good look in the faint dawn light.

'Really?' Kavanagh asked, a smile in his gruff voice. 'Is that what the captain tells ya? Coz there was this time about a year ago - we were testing out a couple of long-range fighters on the  _Mirage_ , out near the Pleiades…'

* * *

Harlock was too slow, and Nevich was off and rabbiting before he could get a shot off. Cursing under his breath, he ran over to Mamoru, who was already trying to get to his feet. 'Sorry - I didn't see that hold-out. Little bastard had a spring-loaded pop gun up this sleeve.'

'Good job it wasn't anything bigger.' Mamoru replied through gritted teeth. 'It's just a flesh wound - but you're dripping onto the rug... '

'I'll pay the cleaning bill,' Harlock retorted. He brushed Mamoru's hand away from his arm. 'I'm fine. Let's go get this son of a bitch before he's off down the hill.' He paused. 'How did they get up here, anyway, with the emitter running?'

'Horses. They used our carriage - the one we use for tourists who like the full immersion thing...'

'Ah. Told you that was a stupid idea.'

'No you didn't.'

They lurched in tandem towards the door, but both had to come to an abrupt halt as something blocked it.

'Holy shit,' Mamoru breathed. 'I think he's taller than you are…' He gulped. 'But wider. Much, much wider…'

If there'd been any justice in the universe, Harlock mused as he swapped his pistol over to his useable hand and tried to cock it, this bastard would be as slow as the tree he resembled. Mamoru's ragged breathing next to his ear as his brother also tried to bring a pistol to bear off-handed was a great incentive to move faster, but in only a couple of strides, the moving mountain had reached them. A contemptuous swing slammed Harlock against the wall, with Mamoru pinned behind him. His brother's pained "oof" suggested a couple of ribs had complained - that or he'd landed on the injured shoulder… A meaty hand reached out and grabbed the front of his jacket and dragged him forwards, releasing Mamoru who slumped to the floor behind him.

The familiar clash of steel on stone reached him from the courtyard.  _Tochiro… swinging and missing at a guess…_ He was hauled closer to his captor until his nose was being assaulted by the stench from the wide, grinning mouth in front of it.

'Seriously,' he croaked. 'Could you brush your teeth if you're going to eat sauerkraut?'

The mountain shook him like a rat and flung him against the opposite wall. A sharp stabbing pain in his right shoulder and a dull crack told him the bastard and managed to pin him on the twelve-pointer mounted near the door. He slumped to the floor hissing in pain. The mountain moved in on Mamoru, and Harlock tried to climb to his feet. His dragoon had fallen out of his hand, and lay several feet away next to Mamoru's desert eagle.

An oversized boot thudded into his ribs almost as an afterthought as he tried to crawl towards the weapons. Another landed in his balls for an encore. Curled around his own pain, he could only watch through watering eyes as the beast reached up and pulled one of the carved stag heads from the wall and hefted it in one giant paw. The gorilla smashed it against the wall above Mamoru's head, and held onto one freed antler, leaning over Mamoru. From his vantage point, Harlock saw the vicious leer spreading over the thug's face, as he pulled his arm back ready to thrust…

'Tochiro!' Harlock's voice emerged as a croak.

Time still refused to slow. The tines of the long-dead stag descended towards Mamoru's defenceless form, and the pistols were still just beyond his grasping fingertips.

 _Miranda's going to fucking kill me_ … was his last sensible though as his fingers closed on the grip of the desert eagle. In a trembling hand he lifted it, tried to tighten a limp finger around the trigger, his arm shaking with the effort against the pain. He fired, but missed, the bullet smashing harmlessly into the stag's head above Mamoru and showering him and his attacker with wooden splinters. The gun bucked in his hand and the ejector choked on the spent cartridge, refusing to send another bullet on its way.

The gorilla let out an enraged roar as something leaped into the corridor and launched itself at his back like a monkey out of a tree. Something shone in the light and flashed down, and with a grunt the human mountain slumped to the floor, narrowly missing pinning Mamoru, who still had the one of the business ends of a fourteen-pointer in his shoulder.

Harlock let the hand holding the heavy automatic fall to the floor and sighed with relief as Tochiro pulled his katana free with some effort and turned to face him, concern on his normally cheery features. 'What kept you?' Harlock asked wearily.

'See?' Tochiro called back over his shoulder to a shadowy figure in the doorway. 'Told you he'd be an ungrateful bastard!' He leaned over Mamoru and tutted, ignoring Harlock's spluttering mutters. 'Sit still, Mamoru. That's gonna have to stay put for a few minutes longer - need to get you to a medic.'

'I'm bleeding over here as well, if anyone cares,' Harlock called out, his voice huskier than usual.

'And yet, feeling well enough to complain about it,' Tochiro twitted him. 'Keep a paw on it - I've got puncture wounds and a gunshot over here…'

'What do you think I've got?' Harlock muttered darkly as he pushed himself to his feet by dint of holding onto the wall. The corridor span alarmingly, and he slumped against the cool stone, to be fielded by Khalsa. His dark-skinned security chief offered a shoulder and helped him to a convenient upholstered chair nestled against the far wall. He slumped into it gratefully. 'Nevich?'

'Ah… sorry - got past us - came sprinting out of here shooting, and we had to duck behind the well. Must be halfway to Bayreuth by now, the speed he was running…' Tochiro replied apologetically.

'Fuck. By the time we get comms back online he'll have three hundred party-goers willing to swear he was at a function all night two systems away…' he looked around, suddenly realising someone was missing. 'Maya?'

'Safe - dismantling the null-EM emitter in the tower. Kav's with her,' Khalsa rumbled.

'The girls and Miranda?' Tochiro asked, still working on Mamoru. He'd finally pulled the antler free and was applying pressure. 'Khal - can we swap? You're bigger - this needs more pressure.' When Khalsa took his place, Tochiro scampered over to his friend's side. 'Sorry, but he really is in a worse state than you are…'

'And you can see that  _how_  in in this light?' Harlock pouted.

Tochiro rolled his eyes and set to work on Harlock's arm. 'He's gushing and half-conscious, you're dripping and being a mardy git. There's a bit of difference. Can you get your arm out of this or do I need to take a knife to it? Whoa - what happened to your face?'

'Fell off the damn bike. And cut it off - I can get a new one.' He tried not to wince as Tochiro took out a blade and began slicing the blood-encrusted leather off him. 'They're upstairs, with Justinian. Get something on this to slow the bleeding and I'll go get them.'

'Yeah, right…' Tochiro muttered as he carried on working. 'I'll believe that when I see it…'

The chair wasn't thickly padded, but it was enough. He leaned back against the thin padding on the back, and closed his eyes, shutting out Tochiro's muttering as he worked.

* * *

'Holes,' Miranda declared, an accusatory finger jabbing in the direction of a battered and barely awake Harlock. 'My husband has  _holes_ in him…' She was sitting on the edge of Mamoru's bed, the children curled up alongside their father in various stages of exhaustion. All of them had cried themselves almost to sleep.

Maya sat in the chair next to Harlock's, bandaging the bullet wound on his arm. The medic from the Yukikaze had stitched up both that and his cheek, and under a gauze pad the line of neat stitches was mercifully hidden for now. His nose had taken some abuse as well, sporting a shallower cut and some nasty bruising as well as a new bump. Harlock had refused to - as he described it - "walk around with two lumps of cotton wool sticking out of it" to help it settle after his medic had snapped it back into position.

'So have I,' Harlock pointed out - not unreasonably, Maya thought. She herself ached all over from her tumble from the bike, she couldn't even begin to imagine how he felt, and the stubborn idiot had refused any painkillers.

'I said, not a scratch,' Miranda scolded. 'Does any of this look like "not a scratch" to anyone?' she sniffled a little, and Mamoru reached out a hand slowly and patted her tiny one.

'He already had most of those before I got there. And why does no-one care about  _my_ wounds?' Harlock asked plaintively. He turned his wine-dark eyes on Maya, who busied herself with smoothing her handiwork and fastening off the bandage.

'Because you're an antisocial brat?' Mamoru retorted weakly.

'He has you there,' Maya whispered in Harlock's ear. She dropped a light kiss on his forehead just to let him know she didn't mean it, and held out a shirt. 'Need some help with this?' He nodded and held his arms out for her to help him on with the soft white shirt. 'You could use a shower,' she sniffed, as she fastened a handful of buttons, regretfully covering up his nicely toned torso.

'Share it with me?' he teased. She didn't get a chance to retort as Mamoru cleared his throat and glared at his brother.

'If we could try and stay on topic before I fall asleep... ?' He glanced over to where Tochiro and Justin were both propping a wall up. 'What did you two find out?'

'Nevich was all a quiver over whatever dirt the pair of you had dug up - seemed to think there was a possibility you'd found something potentially a lot more explosively damaging than just some "financial" irregularities surrounding Zone Industries and their customer base.'

'Bad enough to get the new Capitol Guard involved on behalf of the Council,' Harlock butted in grimly. 'Those weren't just rent-a-thugs.'

'Won't someone come looking for them?' Maya ventured, a little timidly at sticking her nose into the conversation.  _But to hell with it, I was in the thick of this as well_ …

'I doubt it,' Harlock replied gently. His smile lacked its usual gigawattage, but was still reassuring. 'This was totally off the books - those guardsmen were wearing clothing from at least three worlds known to have ties to more militant Returner movements, and no identifying marks or features. If I hadn't heard them talking, we might never have known who they were. And it's certain there weren't supposed to be any witnesses.'

'If this was supposed to look like a terrorist attack, what would Zone gain?' Maya asked. She stared at her father. 'Why kill us?'

Justin sighed and rubbed his left temple. When he spoke he didn't meet her eyes. 'Not Zone - the faction he's in bed with. It suits certain elements in the government to foster fear and hatred of the colonists and their cause. The industrialised worlds - Grand Technologia, Lar Metal, Metabloody, Destiny - they have a vested interest in the status quo - they've allied with the Home System and they want - and need - stability. But there are factions who see a war as a chance to profit - and, given the new Council is still finding its feet - need a nice, well defined threat to keep people from looking too closely at problems closer to home.'

'And a terrible massacre of a prominent - if not well-connected - Earth family of ancient provenance and a tendency to stick a thorn in the side of the authorities would be a nice opener for hostilities,' Mamoru added sourly. 'Someone was taking the opportunity offered by Zone's little hacker-hunt.'

Harlock shook his head slightly. 'There's more to it than that… I get that Zone Industries would love to pick at the corpse of Arcadia Engineering, and that there are several well-placed assholes who'd love to see us go down, but what the hell could have their panties in such a bunch they'd risk something this public?'

Tochiro cleared his throat and stepped forward. 'I might have something there…' he brought up a small hologram on his portable tablet. 'I spent all night once we got you two stitched up going over that data Mamoru turned up. I can't quite see where this is going, but I did find some pieces of a jigsaw…' Turning in the air above the display he held out, were a series of technical diagrams - mostly of some kind of rings, arranged sequentially, varying in diameter, but from the specs the largest was over a hundred metres.

'They're building something out near Jupiter,' Tochiro continued. 'Very expensive, top secret. They've spread a lot of the work to outside contractors, but Zone Industries is coordinating the sub-contractors. The whole project is under this man's aegis…' a tap of the screen and the schematics vanished, to be replaced by the picture of a young man with greasy dark hair, a narrow, weak chin partially covered by a pitiful attempt at a goatee, and a sharp, ill-favoured face dominated by a thin, hooked nose under pale, watery eyes and a receding widows' peak. 'His name's Hechi - he just got appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board to the Fleet.' Tochiro's voice held a note of displeasure.

Maya gave him a searching look. 'You're not a fan?'

'He's just pissed the guy got picked ahead of him.' Harlock replied with a ghost of a grin creeping back onto his face. 'Even if he didn't  _want_ the job…'

'I didn't. It's the principle of the thing,' Tochiro sniffed. 'They could at least have asked so I could have told them where to stick it.'

'You have standards,' Justin said quietly. 'They know there are lines you'd never cross.'

Tochiro gave the older man a sharp look, but said nothing.

'Anyway… Harlock continued. 'Whatever it is, it's sensitive enough to make it worth their while to silence at least eleven people - they killed the stable manager and the resident gardener before my people got here, and if Annelise and Greta had stayed overnight instead of leaving early to visit Greta's sister in Bayreuth's hospital, I'd be looking at four dead friends instead of two.'

'Won't there be repercussions?' Maya asked. She looked from her father, to Harlock, then Mamoru. On her chair next to the bed, Miranda stirred nervously and Mamoru squeezed her hand, still curled around his.

'Oh, you can count on it,' Harlock replied grimly.

'I meant from them, to us,' Maya clarified. 'I kind of expected  _you'd_ be looking to make someone pay…'

He arched one thick, dark eyebrow at her and said nothing. Mamoru reached out the hand that wasn't wrapped around his wife's hand and ran his fingers through Katy's long hair, but said nothing, his lips compressed into a thin line.

'Nothing overt,' Maya's father answered. 'I suspect the elements responsible will keep their heads down for a bit and wait to see which way you'll jump.' He hesitated. 'Don't make the mistake of thinking this is black and white. There are…'

'It's very black and white from where I'm sitting,' Mamoru broke in, uncharacteristically harshly. 'They assaulted my family. I don't intend to let this slide without an answer.'

Justin opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, looking oddly unhappy to Maya's eyes.

'Father?' She couldn't keep a note of concern creeping into her tone.

He shook his head, and said nothing.

'We should be able to keep them on edge enough for someone somewhere to slip up,' Tochiro added with a feral grin. He bit back a yawn. 'Now if we're all up to speed, I plan on emulating that little pile of girly Harlock's on that bed, and getting some much needed sleep.' He had to make his way past Harlock to reach the door and gave his friend a friendly punch on the shoulder as he reached him. 'That goes for you too, loverboy. You're almost falling asleep where you sit.'

'I'll make sure he gets to bed,' Maya assured him. Tochiro sniggered filthily and dodged the half-hearted thump Harlock wearily aimed at his head. He ducked in under the raised arm and deftly snagged the Colt from his friend's holster.

'I'm sure you will… And I'll take this, if you don't mind.'

'Be my guest,' Harlock sighed. 'I don't think I got more than one shot off.'

'Told you so,' Mamoru added dryly.

'No-one likes a smart-arse,' Harlock replied a little primly. Mamoru and Tochiro shared a glance and snorted in unison.

Tochiro hefted the Colt in his hand, his bottom lip caught in his teeth. 'It's heavy, but well-balanced - only problem is the single-action and the kick-back… I was thinking - EM countermeasures can mean you end up weaponless using modern guns, but there's enough room in something this size to improve the electronics protection… if you don't mind the weight. Be nice to have something with a bit of power and a quick rate of fire that you could rely on…' Still staring at the pistol he wandered out of the room, only narrowly missing the wall on his way out.

Harlock shook his head. 'Well that's the last I'll see of him for a week…' he muttered. He struggled to his feet, aided by Maya. 'Aniki. Miri. Uncle - if you'll excuse me?' He bowed politely and let Maya lead him from the room. Outside he leaned against the wall, all colour gone from his face. Maya waited for him to straighten up again.

'You know, you can lean on me,' she said softly. 'I won't tell the macho guys hanging around.' Her attempt at a light tone raised a ghost of a smile.

'I just need to crash for a week,' he muttered. But he accepted her offer, placing one long arm around her waist and holding her far closer than necessary. Enjoying the closeness, she smiled to herself and kept to his slow pace until they reached the door to his rooms, and she could guide him inside and over to the bed, where he flopped bonelessly on top of the covers. 'Would it be inappropriate to ask you to give me a hand with my boots?'

She sighed at him. 'Yes. But unless you have a valet hiding in here somewhere, I suspect you're just going to have to ask me nicely and owe me a lot of favours…' She helped him off with the boots and sighed again when he simply swung his legs onto the bed without bothering to get undressed. 'Not even going to remove your trousers first?'

'Now there's a line I don't hear that often,' he drawled sleepily.

She snorted, and pulled the coverlet over him. 'Honestly. Even if this state and you only have one thing on your mind…' But she leaned over and dropped a kiss on his undamaged cheek.

'Not just one thing.' He stretched out and leaned on one elbow so he could look at her. 'Something's a little off, and I can't quite make it out. Most of us have pro-Earth sympathies - none of us want a return to the days of overcrowding and pollution that led to the first diasporas. I've seen for myself how greedy exploitation of the richer colonial systems is repeating the same mistakes all over again out there.' His lip curled into a sneer. 'It seems humanity never learns…' He made an effort to smile reassuringly. 'I love this planet,' he added softly. 'Travel as far as I might, I've never seen anything to match her. I love space, and the freedom of sailing the sea of stars - but I always have this to come home to,' he finished wistfully.

She lowered her head and placed her hands in her lap, and he reached over and took her cold hand in his own warm one. Eventually she looked up into his eyes, trying not to let her gaze drop to the long line of stitches still covered by gauze. 'It hurts my father, to see what's happening out there. Truthfully, there's not much anyone can do to stop what's happening - terraforming failed spectacularly on so many worlds, and there are people starving on planets that should never have been colonised.'

'Damned if we did and damned if we didn't,' Harlock replied softly. 'If we'd stayed, we'd have stripped Earth bare, but we ran out to the stars before they were ready for us, and started all over again, without thought for the future.'

'Father says it's a harvest we're now reaping that was sown centuries ago,' she whispered. 'He drinks more than he used to. Especially since mother died. Even here…'

'Would he sanction drastic measures to put a stop to the coming conflict?' Harlock asked quietly.

Maya started to shake her head, and stopped herself, dropping her gaze again. 'A year ago I would have said no. But there have been times he's come back from a council meeting and headed straight for a bottle. He won't talk to me, but I hear things…'

Harlock sat up and drew her closer, until she was almost sitting in his lap. 'So do I… it's been obvious the Fleet is gearing up for a major conflict - most of us can see the writing's on the wall. Everything Arcadia Engineering has been commissioned to design has been part of a massive build-up of force that only has one target - our own kind. What we've seen in Zone's records suggests that bigger weapons are in the design stages - planet killers - or worse.'

She leaned against his comforting shoulder. 'You think father knows about some of this?'

'I think times are coming which will see a lot of good men make bad choices, simply because there won't be  _any_ good choices to make.' He kissed the top of her head lightly. 'I think he can't not know about it, and I think it's tearing him apart.' He sat up. 'I think we need to have a talk, Justin and I…'

She pushed him back down again. 'Not tonight,' she said firmly. When he opened his mouth to protest she leaned over and kissed him, delicately teasing his tongue with her own. When she came up for air she ran her fingers through his hair. 'You've been shot, fallen off a bike, cut, bruised, scraped and you're exhausted. Whatever it is can wait, surely?'

'I'm not that tired,' he complained when she started to walk towards the door. She looked back over her shoulder to see him smiling admiringly at her. She smiled back, but didn't turn back, and made sure to shut the door firmly behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Waterfall 4/4**

'Is it me,' Tochiro asked moodily, kicking at the inoffensive, helpless marble flagstone underfoot, 'or is this whole exercise more like hitting your head against a brick wall?'

'More painful,' Harlock replied through gritted teeth. He rubbed idly at the healing scar on his face as they walked back through the vaulted corridor of the Citadel towards the beanstalk, where the  _Yukikaze_ waited for them above in orbit, utterly oblivious to the neo-gothic architecture that soared above their heads, and equally oblivious to the stares and muttered comments from other officers and civilians they passed.

'Stop scratching it, it'll never heal,' his friend told him as they walked. 'Shit. I knew Nevich was connected, but this is ridiculous.'

'Wasn't scratching, I was rubbing. And the nerve of the bastard - threatening to sue for slander! Can he do that?'

'Apparently.' Tochiro's reply was uncharacteristically glum. 'We don't have any proof - just our word against his, and he's got more money to throw at the Council than we have.'

'A shame I didn't mark him more permanently,' Harlock growled. 'He'd have a hard job explaining my fingerprints on his throat…' He glared at the two over-dressed flunkies who startled and glared at him with disapproval over the tops of the files clutched to their chests. 'What the fuck are you two staring at? Nothing better to do with your time? Or cruising for a hard shag?'

Both men jumped as he took a step in their direction, but fled when Harlock was brought up short by Tochiro's restraining hand on his arm.

'Oi, oi… easy there. We've got few enough allies on Mars as it is without you scaring the entire population witless.' They reached the door of the orbital elevator and waited patiently for one of the cars to return. 'Fact is we didn't have a strong hand and Zone and Nevich knew it - we've not been able to prove who hired those thugs - and although it seems pretty clear those HR records for the ex-Vatican guards we killed were doctored to show those discharge dates, we both know it's a crock. We're out of our depth, my friend, and over our heads. Illegally obtained files, a few dead bodies and the word of an impoverished lieutenant and his family and crew ain't worth shit.'

'Miranda and the girls could testify…'

'Mamoru wouldn't allow it - and all they'd say is they were too traumatised to remember. Hell - they tore Justin's testimony apart in there without breaking a sweat, after that doctor did his piece about head injuries.'

Harlock kicked at the closed door of the lift. 'This is what we get for playing it  _their_ way. If I could just…'

'This is what you get for playing it  _your_ way, my boy.'

The booming voice from behind the pair caused both of their shoulders to tense before they turned round. 'Dad.' Tochiro's voice came out in a squeak.

Hiroshi Oyama, current head of Arcadia Engineering, strode towards the pair, Justin scurrying to keep up at his side, despite the older man's bulk. Oyama senior was only a little taller than his son, and decidedly stouter. However he could still set a fair pace, as Justinian was obviously finding out the hard way. Bearded, bespectacled and despite being only in his mid forties, already thinning on top, but a force to be reckoned with.

Or avoided. Harlock started to sidle towards the second set of doors a few metres away.

'And just where do you think you're going, Albrecht?'

'I thought I'd take the stairs,' Harlock muttered sullenly, his top lip curling at the use of the first of the shopping list of his despised given names. Tochiro had to cough to hide a nervous giggle.

'Into orbit? Don't be ridiculous.' Unlike his son, Oyama senior didn't have a sense of humour.

The lift arrived and the four ended up with it to themselves; between Harlock's glower from his imposing height, and Oyama's belligerent stare from lower down, the other three potential occupants found a pressing urge to be elsewhere. Tochiro found a corner and tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, earning a sympathetic smile from Maya's father, who looked decidedly put-upon himself.

The machine had barely begun its long ascent when Oyama's voice filled the small car. 'If the pair of you - or three I should say, since Mamoru appears to have lost whatever common sense he has - had brought this matter to me straight away, perhaps I could have brought more pressure to bear. But no… as usual, you two just had to stick your noses in…'

'It's not as if we knew there was anything that serious to look at,' Harlock interjected sulkily. 'At least until Nevich came knocking.'

'But you did your usual thing, trying to sort problems out on your own, and as a result, Mamoru and his family are lucky to be alive, you got yourself shot…' he paused, looked the tall youth up and down, frowning when he noticed the way he was holding his still not healed arm 'again. Your home got shot up, Justin's little girl was caught up in the firefight, and you almost got my son killed. Did I miss anything?'

'Oh - I don't know - maybe the part where Nevich and someone high up in the government orchestrated the whole thing and tried to make it look like a terrorist attack by Come-homers in order to further some unknown political agenda?' Tochiro spoke up, seeing that Harlock was clenching his fists so tight that if he'd been gloveless he'd have been dripping blood on the floor by now. 'Dad - you saw those blueprints-'

'No, I didn't. Not if I want to keep that lucrative contract that keeps the pair of you supplied with toys to play with and blow up, I didn't. At least  _that_ part you had enough sense to keep quiet about.' He turned his baleful glare onto the increasingly uncomfortable Harlock. 'You meant well - can never fault you there, lad. But will you for the love of Earth get some brakes fitted on both your mouth and your good intentions? You always act before you think through the consequences. It doesn't matter if you're right, if the other guy has a bigger stick than you do. And trust me, right now, Zone and Nevich have just that.

'Now the pair of you have two weeks to sort out Harlock's affairs back home, and then the Council - and the Admiralty - want the pair of you shipped out somewhere where you can't do any damage for a while. They don't want you shouting your mouths off to the press. So you'll take the Yukikaze out to Enceladus, pick up some boffins from the Exploratory Corps, and then you're heading out to a binary system out in the middle of nowhere. Some massive explosion or somesuch pinged off some expensive telescope, and they want a ship. I offered them the Yukikaze, and you pair of jokers. Oh - and you're welcome. The alternative was a long-haul surveillance mission on some old crate called the Karyu that I wouldn't trust to hold together past the first IN-SKIP jump.'

The doors opened onto the bare white corridor of the space station, and Oyama stomped out without a backwards glance. Justin gave the pair a sympathetic shrug, and followed.

Tochiro stuffed his hands in his pockets and pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against with a heavy sigh. He nipped through the doors as they started to close, and stood in front of the sensor to hold them open for his taller companion. Harlock joined him reluctantly, and trudged in his wake as they headed for the shuttle dock. 'Well that could have been worse…'

'Worse? He didn't even look at those blueprints,' Harlock grumbled. 'How-'

Tochiro elbowed him in the ribs. 'Shut up a bit, will ya? I'd rather talk about that lovely bit of stuff you've got waiting for you back Earthside - or rather, the delightful Annelise waiting for me, Earthside. If only her mother wasn't such a dragon…' He kept up his inane chatter right up until they entered the Yukikaze's airlock, and it hissed shut behind them.

'Finally,' Harlock drawled when silence fell. 'I thought you'd never shut up.'

'Funny. I was thinking the same, you dope. Did you stop to wonder if anyone was listening? We're in shit up to our eyeballs right now.' At the abashed look on his friend's face, he sighed theatrically. 'Stupid question, Toshiro… why do you even bother asking?'

'I just thought it was a bit much your dad wasn't interested in those blueprints,' Harlock snapped at him as they walked to the bridge.

'That's not what he said, if you actually bothered listening. He can't discuss the damn things in public. I know dad - trust me, he's interested. He's trying to protect us.'

'By shipping us out on a baby-sitting expedition for a bunch of nerds?'

'As a card-carrying nerd, you oversized jock, I take severe exception to that slur,' Tochiro growled at him. Harlock stuck his tongue out, and Tochiro laughed at him. 'You can be such a child. Look - we were going to have to do something similar in a few weeks anyway as her shakedown cruise - all it's done is move the timetable up a bit.' He nipped through the bulkhead that led to the bridge of the small destroyer-class ship. 'I'll talk to dad tonight - we're running him and Justin back with us to Earth.'

'And leave it to the grown ups, as Mamoru so quaintly puts it?' Harlock huffed. 'I'm over twenty-one. Hardly a child.'

'Barely. And yeah - why not? We're gonna be light-years away for months. Maybe they can start looking a bit harder now they know what to look for. You know Mamoru won't let this go either, so let the experts do what they do best.'

'Whilst we sit on our hands watching some techs run tests on solar emissions?' Harlock scowled at him from under a thatch of his unruly hair. 'My cup runneth over.' He frowned even harder. 'And this puts a crimp in a few other plans…'

Tochiro glanced up from where he'd been busying himself with his console. 'The lovely Maya?' he hazarded. The answering growl necessitated finding something fascinating on his console to concentrate on so his grin wasn't visible from the captain's chair. 'Yeah…' he muttered. 'What could possibly go wrong there…?'

* * *

It was partly a relief that the following week passed in a blur of official investigation, both local and planetary, and something of a disappointment. Mostly for the same reason: it kept Harlock busy, despite his injuries, dealing with the fallout from the events of that night. Maya didn't get to spend any time with the young graf, and even Tochiro and Mamoru were tied up with various related affairs. Her father had to leave to attend a committee on Mars, and that left her kicking up her heels once the police and other investigators had finished with her, with only the women of the house for company. Miranda she liked, but she was several years older and a wife and mother, with little in common with her, and Annelise was often kept busy helping to organise the clean-up, refusing Maya's well-intentioned attempts to muck-in.

It left her with only the grounds and surrounding forest and parkland to explore, and when she ran out of places to explore by bike, she switched to horseback, borrowing one of the milder mannered hacks from the stables situated just off the road, at the foot of the hill. But whilst she revelled in the freedom to go where she wished, when she wished, with no-one to bother her, the lack of bothering - at least by a certain dark-eyed, sinfully beautiful young man with questionable intentions - began to leave something of a hollow inside.

There was also the outstanding matter of his somewhat "functional" proposal, given that the deadline for the announcement of the expulsion of colonial-born citizens was looming.

Harlock and Tochiro were still on Mars, so when she had a chance, as Miranda shooed her daughters upstairs - their own home still unlivable thanks to some over-enthusiastic kidnapper turning everything over looking for no-one quite knew what, she asked a still pale but improving Mamoru for advice.

'He asked?' he shook his head. 'Honestly. Tact isn't his strong suit.'

She smiled at that. 'Maybe. But at least he  _was_ honest.'

'That,' Mamoru said archly, 'Is usually when he's at his most dangerous.' But he smiled at her warmly. 'Tough call for both of you. You like him?'

She nodded. Like wasn't in doubt. He did have a way with him, even when she felt like thumping him. He kissed like a devil, his hands had never even heard of discretion and for her own part there wasn't an inch of his tall, lean and overwhelmingly masculine form that she hadn't fantasised about running her hands over. Or kissing. Or licking. His tendency to stare at her over the kitchen table at dinner with those wicked eyes from under his long hair put her in mind of a few choice lines from Milton, and if her 'archangel ruined' licked those full, wide lips again at her across the table during dinners in that way he had, she wasn't going to be responsible for the consequences. Even his tendency to open his mouth and place both of his very large feet in it was rather endearing.

In small doses… She knew damn well that over a long period of time, amusing eccentricities could easily escalate into murderously annoying fingernails-down-blackboard habits. She did, after all, have three older brothers.

'Well,' Mamoru continued when she didn't contribute anything further after her nod. 'Lay it out and have a good think about the pluses and the minuses. Be honest with yourself - and don't mind me - I'm not partisan - I love the idiot, but I'm not sure I'd wish him on you for the rest of your life unless you truly feel you can't live without him.'

She smiled at him. In a lot of ways he was so much easier to talk to than Harlock, despite the age difference. She doodled in what was left of her soup with her spoon. 'Well, he's kind, handsome, intelligent, can be funny when he wants to be… he's brave - almost to a fault.'

'No "almost", Maya - I said  _honest_ …'

They shared a smile. 'Is it too mercenary to mention his inheritance? Because I do love this place…' she continued a little more hesitantly.

'I said be honest.  _All_ the pluses. And no, it's not. You will need somewhere to live - might as well be somewhere you love. Besides - he's not that personally well-off - though you won't want for anything.'

She took a deep breath. 'Okay then. Mercenary baggage that I am, I do rather like the idea of staying here. And then there's the family - my brothers are scattered around the galaxy, and fathers' work will take him more and more often out into the colonies, and that scares me a little. But here there's Tochiro, and you, Miranda, the girls… and the staff here are so nice - I like Annelise…'

'So is it Harlock you'd be marrying or everything he brings with him?' he asked, his slightly exotically shaped hazel eyes twinkling.

'When you put it like that...' she replied shyly, suddenly all too aware of how her list must sound.

'Don't fret - we haven't even got to the negatives yet,' he assured her. 'You might need every positive you can find.'

'Oh! That's just unfair!' She felt she had to defend his honour, given that he wasn't there to do it for himself.

'Maya - I've known him since he was a little boy. Trust me, you'd be in for stormy weather, but when he puts his mind to it, he can be worth the trouble. He's reserved, stubborn, opinionated, can drink anyone I know under the table and stand up under his own steam afterwards, has a nasty temper when he's provoked into losing it, and nurses a grudge like you wouldn't believe. He also believes in keeping any promise he makes, no matter what it costs, and he's fiercely protective and loyal to those he loves - though woe betide anyone who betrays that - he gives, but he does expect it back in equal measure.'

'Shouldn't some of those be on the plus list?' she asked.

Mamoru raised one light brown eyebrow in reply, and when she considered his description, she did see his point. 'But what I don't want to do is make him feel that it's only his offer of safety that I want,' she murmured. 'That would hurt him.'

'He offered,' Mamoru pointed out mildly. 'He's well aware of the consequences - I hope. And you're going to have to bear in mind he's also somewhat single-minded when he sees something - or someone - he wants.'

'Stubborn?' she asked with a cheeky smile.

He smiled back 'Stubborn,' he agreed. They both laughed. 'The thing is - and it might be to both your benefit - he'll be away a lot. He won't be sidelined into testing prototypes forever, and there will be war - sooner rather than later. It's likely you'd be alone here for months at a time. Which would at least give the pair of you time to grow up a little, and get to know each other without living in each other's pockets.'

'It could also drive us apart,' she muttered.

'True - but in this case… If you want my full-on honest opinion, I think you'd be good for each other - but not just yet. You're both so damn young. The problem is, you don't have the luxury of time. Once this expulsion begins, it's unlikely you'd ever be allowed back - and you'd certainly never be permitted to marry after it.' He paused, a wistful half-smile playing around the corners of his mouth. 'Miri and I were married when we were your age, but we'd known each other day in day out since we were children. If the fates are kind I hope we'll slip away in our bed together a hundred years from now surrounded by adoring great-great grandchildren.'

'Maybe the fates will be kind to both of us,' she replied, a wistful smile tugging at the corners of her own mouth at the thought. 'But if they aren't…'

'Then we take every moment of every day we have and make it count,' Mamoru told her fiercely. 'Nothing like being shot recently to make you rethink your life,' he continued, with a wink that only went part way towards taking the bitterness out of his words. She leaned over the table and gave his hand - the one not still in a sling - a squeeze to show she understood.  _Nothing like having your wife and children abducted at gunpoint and threatened_ , she added mentally.

She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. 'Thank you, Mamoru-san.'

'You're welcome - but call me Mamoru - there's no need to be that respectful. We're family even if you don't marry the moody idiot.'

She laughed. 'Mamoru then. But what is it Harlock calls you - isn't that a term of respect?'

'Aniki. Yes and no - in his case it's kind of a cheeky way of saying "big brother" rather than the more formal "nii-san". It doesn't have to be directed at a family member.' He smiled up at her. 'Just so I know - where were you planning on going?'

He always left the "in case we're attacked again" unspoken.

'To the waterfall. I need to do some thinking.' She smiled at a memory. 'And maybe some carping of diems…'

He laughed politely at her joke. 'I guess I shouldn't send one of the Yukikaze's crew with you then this time. Be careful.'

She patted her hip, where a holstered pistol had sat ever since the attack. 'Always. Don't worry - I've been practicing.' She sauntered off with rather more spring in her step than she really felt. In truth, a lot of things about the past couple of weeks weighed on her mind.

Maybe the cold water would wash a few away…

* * *

She took a horse, partly because they still needed stable hands to replace the men killed in the attack, and the horses needed the exercise. Tochiro's little chestnut mare knew the way and was happy to amble along the path that led up the wooded hill to the waterfall, past the ruined folly. The falls, she'd learned, weren't natural - some ancestral Graf had diverted a stream and built the falls in imitation of a natural formation, creating the splash pool and the meandering stream as a gift for his new wife, about five hundred years ago.

At times, the timescales on display made her head hurt. The castle had been standing in one for or another on the same spot for maybe eighteen hundred years. And during that time, the Harlock family - through various variations of surname, title, and a decidedly meandering family tree, had - with only a few lacunae - been in residence. The direct male line had died out sometime in the mid-twentieth century - the last holder of the name had only fathered one daughter, who'd married a Japanese inventor - as it happened, the co-founder of what was now Arcadia Engineering. Her own branch was distantly related, probably because the Rosenbachs had originated in Bayreuth, and never moved too far away. And there were, she knew, a couple of distant branches still in Japan, according to the family legends, at least one dating back to the fifteenth century.

She wondered if that one owed anything to her young, sad, armoured knight in the portrait by the famous painter, even as she tethered the mare and strolled over to the edge of the pool. She knelt on the gravel at the side and trailed her fingers in the cold water, occasionally lifting them out so that she could watch the rainbow droplets twinkle in the sunlight as they fell through her fingers. The day was warm, and that finally made her mind up for her. Throwing caution to the winds, she stripped off quickly and stepped into the water.

She shivered at first and drew in a sharp breath as the cold water closed around her. But after the initial shock it was bracing, and she soon felt warmer as she swam the few yards from the edge to the falls, and then lazily back and forth, sometimes just floating on the surface, her long hair trailing behind her, weighted by the water and following her as she swam, like the golden locks on one of the nymphs of legend - Lorelei, or perhaps the Rhinemaidens they sang of in the grand, ancient opera house in Bayreuth. If there'd been a convenient rock in the middle of the pool, she might have persuaded herself to sit on it and comb through her hair with her fingers, she thought as she turned onto her back to swim from shore to waterfall this time, enjoying the warm heat of the sun on her breasts as they poked impudently above the waterline, her nipples hard and puckered from the cold water.

" _What songs the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture."_ Harlock's low, melodic voice broke into her reverie as she floated idly through a sunbeam.

'I wasn't singing,' she pointed out as she ducked under the water hastily, only to end up getting a mouthful as she splashed around, and rose up again, coughing and spluttering.

'Oh, I don't know - that little "eek" you let out as you went under the second time was a pretty decent high C,' he deadpanned. 'At least until you started swallowing the pool…' he added, attempting an innocent look that failed dismally, given that his dark eyes were trying to pierce the veil of the water she was churning up with her legs to vainly (and belatedly) hide her naked state. 'Do I need to administer the kiss of life?' he asked, still failing to nail the beatific look.

'I think I'll live.' She backpedalled to get a little more distance from the shore and a bit more chop. 'I thought you weren't due back for another two days?'

'If you want to hide under the water, you'll need to drop the buoyancy aides,' he smirked. She looked down, wondering what the hell he was talking about, and realised that her breasts were riding nicely on top of the waves.  _Treacherous little sluts_ …

'...summarily dismissed,' he continued, seemingly unaware of her distraction. 'Got in to Bayreuth about an hour ago and flew straight here. Mamoru said you came this way, so…' He smiled at her. 'Here I am, ready for bodyguard duty.'

She snorted. 'Seriously, I think the only person my body needs guarding against around here is you…' she pointed out.

Another beaming smile. 'Guilty as charged. But I promise I won't enter the water unless you invite me.' He sat down in a tangle of long legs on the side of the pool, and trailed his fingers in the water.

'Except - I can't get out whilst you're watching,' she added thoughtfully.

His answering grin was positively wicked - although that might have been the very slight twist the scar on his face gave the corner of his mouth. The stitches had been removed just before he left for Mars, but the wound was quite obviously still painful - his hand kept drifting up as if to rub the area, and forced down by an effort of will.

She found herself smiling in response to his playfulness, although there was a sense that it wasn't totally unforced. A tightness around his eyes as he'd spoken about the dismissal? Or the way that, when he thought she wasn't looking, that smile could leave his mouth, only to be plastered straight back on when she faced him.

'Well…' she turned back onto her front and began to swim across the pool at a reasonably safe distance. From the direction of his gaze, his eyes were tracking her bottom with military precision. 'I can't stay in here all day… Maybe you could be a gentleman and look the other way?' She made the suggestion in a voice that she hoped hinted even to  _him_ that that was the last thing she either wanted or expected.

'I could… but then, I keep remembering how a certain young miss - and I can hardly call her a lady - decided not that long ago to watch me climb out of there without a stitch on. Seems to me, turnabout's fair play. You know - equality, and all that,' he drawled. Without taking his eyes off her, he removed his restricting flight jacket and dumped it unceremoniously to one side. He'd obviously taken the time to change, because instead of a flightsuit underneath, he was just wearing a light grey sweater tucked into his green uniform trousers, and the thin fabric clung to his chest like a second skin. Whilst she watched from her vantage point close to where the waterfall hit the pool, he pulled his boots off as well, and then wriggled his toes in the water with a sigh of relief.

'But not coming in?'

Not without an invitation,' he replied with what looked suspiciously like a twinkle in his eyes. 'Besides, it's cold…' His eyes were fixed on a point several inches below her chin and she blushed as she realised her breasts were once again showing off for the audience.

She refused to submit to her blushing. Holding her head high as she trod water, she gave him her best smile. 'There's a warm spot over here…' she said brightly.

He tipped his head on one side slightly to look at her. 'Is that an invitation?' His smile reminded her of a wolf that had just spotted lunch. 'Because I'd be very, very, careful that I was absolutely sure about that before this goes any further. If it is, you're not getting back to that shore with your virtue intact.'

She heaved a theatrical sigh. 'Why is it everyone around here keeps telling me you're not much of a talker? So far, that's about all I've had from you…' she pouted, and had to bite back a grin at his attempt to stop an answering smirk spreading over his own face. Really, she thought, the scar didn't detract too much from his looks. It just gave him a sort of devilishly piratical air… And then she had to take in some much needed oxygen as the air seemed to be suddenly lacking in it - probably because he chose that moment to stand up and pull the sweater over his head, so that he stood there like some ancient renaissance statue, broad shoulders and his chiselled - but not gym-ripped - chest narrowing to his slim hips which were still in the embrace of those form-fitting leathers. It took every bit of willpower she had not to run her eyes down that elegant torso to his navel, and from there follow the line to dark hairs now to where they vanished behind his waistband…

'Lollipop.'

'What?' The word brought her out of her unplanned reveries, and she had to resist the urge to check the side of her mouth for drool.

'Tochiro's right, you do look at me as though you've just sighted a lollipop.'

'Pity it still has the wrapper on,' she muttered, and at his sudden bark of laughter, blushed, realising she'd spoken out loud. But she'd promised herself she wasn't going to waste a moment… 'Are you going to stand there all day?' she called out boldly.

Judging from the speed at which he managed to remove his trousers and dive into the pool, he obviously took the hint. He reached her in less than a handful of strokes, and wrapped himself around her, pulling her close and kissing the life out of her. When they finally had to break apart for oxygen refuelling, he narrowed his eyes and gave her a mock glare. 'I thought you said the water was warmer over here?' he growled. 'It's cold enough to freeze the boll-'

'I said there was a warm spot,' she clarified, grinning up at him. 'I didn't say it was in the water…' She shrieked as he splashed her, but her half-hearted attempts to flee to the safety of the waterfall were utterly futile, She was lifted up in his long, strong arms and had to wrap her legs around his waist to keep her balance and not tumble backwards. At least, that was her story and she planned on sticking to it.

Despite his protestations, the temperature of the water wasn't having too much of an effect on some interesting parts of his anatomy. And she'd apparently thrown any sense of decorum, sanity and common sense away along with her knickers, because even with her back pressed against the cold, slick stone behind the waterfall, with the cool waters beating down on her, the only thing she could think about was that long, lean body forcing her against the stone until the imprint of the granite was embossed into her skin; the way his muscles twitched under her wandering hands; the way he tasted as his tongue and hers tangled in their own separate seductive dance between their mouths as they swapped the lead between them; the way his length nudged against her most intimate places, demanding entry, but held back by an effort of will that she wanted to curse. But in her current position she didn't exactly have any wriggle room. So to speak.

'Harlock!' She wasn't sure if she was begging, demanding or encouraging him when she called out his name.

'Last time I looked,' he murmured into her ear as he pushed her against the cold, wet stone behind the waterfall, although as soon as he realised from one pained little squeak that stone and human skin don't mix, he apologised and carried her - still buried inside her - and for that she thanked her lucky stars for his size and surprising strength - to the shore, after which there really wasn't much she could do beyond hold on for dear life and bury her face in his neck, her teeth in his shoulder, to avoid scaring off every bit of wildlife - or some startled tourists, if any made it this far - for about two miles in every direction.

At least, that's what he laughingly claimed when he rolled over after a very brief respite to get their breath back, and pulled her with him so that she was now settled on top, staring down into his eyes. 'I might need ear defenders next time,' he told her, his mouth curved into a smile so incandescent she felt it might just set fire to the damn forest.

'Really?' she leaned down to kiss those full lips, and smiled inwardly as she heard him groan when she shifted on top of him. 'Because for a self-professed atheist, there was a lot of taking the Lord's name in vain there…'

His hands were busy running through her wet hair, which in her current position covered his thighs. 'Credit where credit's due, as they say,' he murmured. 'Thank you, impersonal universe and forces of natural selection' just doesn't have the same ring to it.' He drew a strand of her water-darkened hair over her shoulder, and delicately stroked her throat with the end of it, and then followed the curve of her collar bone across and down to her breast, before drawing circles around her nipple with the wet locks. 'Please don't cut this. Promise me?'

She smiled at him. 'Not if you love it so much.'

He smiled back. 'I love the way it moves when you walk, as though it has a life of its own - it has potential… like a living veil.' He stroked her head, his fingers running through the wet curls. 'Silky soft when dry - and like this...' he drew the strand he still held down over her flat stomach to her navel, tickling her with it in her belly button. And having found a weakness, as she convulsed in giggles he proceeded to exploit it.

Thoroughly.

* * *

'I never did ask you if you'd given any thought to my suggestion, before defiling you so thoroughly,' he said softly as they nestled together - still naked - on the grass, their horses grazing only a couple of feet away. The day was warm and there didn't seem to be any great urgency in dressing.

Maya squirmed until she could look at his face, still so beautiful, in spite of the wound which cut its way brutally across his right cheek. The stitches had gone, but it still looked red and sore against the light tan he'd gained from his weeks on Earth. Once that faded after a few weeks in space, it would stand out even more, she thought sadly. She ran a finger gently down the line it took, careful to stay away from the wound itself.

'I rather thought that was your cunning plan…' she teased.

'What - to roger you into submission until you couldn't think straight?' He gave her his almost imperceptible one-sided smirk. 'Damn… why didn't I think of that?' He sat up and took her hands in his as they faced each other. More soberly he continued: 'I had a word with Mamoru - he's something of a genius with finances - he's salted away some funds in the colonial banking system, so if you prefer you won't need to starve out there, and we've arranged a few support networks for some of my crew who'll be affected as well - you'll have options, and help - never think that I want to trap you into anything you don't want.'

He was so earnest as he spoke, her heart melted. That he'd go to such lengths to set her free… She kissed him again, as deeply as she could, and when she finally came up for air, she ran her fingers through his now almost-dry hair, regretting the day he'd have to cut it back to an almost regulation length. Curling as it did over his collar, it gave him a rakish air as it fell over his face, almost covering his right eye. 'You'd set me free?' she asked. He nodded, his sherry-dark eyes fixed on hers.

Truthfully, she'd made her decision the moment she teasingly enticed him into the pool earlier. 'There's no need for that,' she told him softly, and laughed as the expression on his face changed from nervous anticipation to exultant delight. His whoop of delight startled several roosting crows from the trees surrounding the glade, as well as almost stampeding the horses. After he'd caught the latter - and the sight of him running after the pair stark naked had sent her into fits of giggles - he dropped back down beside her in a tangle of his long legs and kissed her as though his life depended on it.

'You won't regret this, I promise,' he said earnestly when they took an oxygen break. He pointed to the forbidding, hag-like face in the massive tree opposite their position. 'See - I have a witness!'

'I'm surprised she's not blushing,' Maya told him with a laugh, as she brushed his hair out of his eyes.

'Nah - she's been here so long she's seen it all before I'm sure - which would explain the disapproving looks we're getting…' He took a deep breath. 'You know, if you want a fancy ceremony, I can arrange…'

She shushed him with a finger to his lips, which he dutifully nipped before she could remove it from temptation. 'I don't mind. I'd happily ride to the town right now and stand before the notary if you wanted.'

He grinned mischievously at her. 'Well, if we went like this we'd certainly cause a sensation…' he drawled, looking ostentatiously down at their mutual state of undress. She swatted him on the arm. 'Although the Lady Godiva look might catch on…'

'If you've ever ridden in shorts, 'she told him primly, 'You'd never suggest that. Stirrup leathers and bare skin do  _not_ mix - it pinches.'

His grin widened. 'Darling - I've ridden round here totally naked plenty of times - the trick is to leave the saddle off...'

At the image  _that_ conjured up, she felt a sudden need to go and stand under the waterfall again. But he'd stood up and was bending down to pick up his pants -  _and heaven help her, that was the tightest, most delectable backside she'd ever set eyes on_ …  _along with a pair of lean muscled legs that just seemed to go on forever…_

'… want.'

He'd been speaking and she'd missed it, distracted by watching him dress. Probably round about the time he'd pulled those skin-tight leather pants up over his ass and she'd envied the soft leather as it clung to those rock-hard glutes… 'What?'

He turned and smiled at her whilst pulling his sweater back over his head and smoothing it down over his rock-hard abs. The gesture was so precise she realised that the tease had been deliberately flaunting his considerable assets in front of her as he covered them up. 'I said, the notary will be up at the Schloss the day after tomorrow - plenty of time for Mamoru to sort out the paperwork. Tochiro  _finally_ popped the question to Annelise and the daft bint said yes, so…'

She snorted, and reached for her own clothes. 'Knowing Mamoru, I suspect he's had most of it drawn up since not long after you got here for the funeral. Probably already on a clipboard somewhere.'

Harlock smiled fondly. 'I don't think he ever goes anywhere without a checklist. I used to tease Miri about it when I was younger, but honestly - I think all that hyper-preparation was just his way of coping with some of the shit dad would throw our way. But you might be right - he likes to be prepared for all eventualities. Our Mamo-chan doesn't fly by the seat of his pants.'

'No - thankfully. Two of you would be more than the world could handle,' she replied as she tugged her boots on. 'Now - whilst I try and sort my hair out - back up a bit. Tochiro  _proposed_? I want the details!'

* * *

'...went flying and sat right down in the puddle of half-poached eggs, and then he picks himself up, dripping egg whites, and goes down on one knee - right in the middle of the mess I'd just dropped, holds up one of the poaching rings, and asks me - just blurts it right out and how could I resist those eyes? He just has a way of looking at you that makes your stomach do flip-flops…'

A snort from Harlock interrupted Annelise's gushing description. He nodded sagely. 'I know that look, and it turns my stomach too… ow! You bastards! What was that for?' He glared in turn at Maya and his brother who'd both elbowed him in the ribs.

'Now is that any way to talk to your fiancee of - oh - two hours?' Mamoru asked him, innocence plastered over his face.

'It is when she's in league with my demonic elder sibling to try and cripple me before my wedding night,' he grumbled. That elicited a snort from Tochiro, sandwiched between Maya and his own future bride.

'Seriously? Because I thought you'd rather put the cart before that hor… Ow!' he glared in his turn at the beatifically smiling Maya and a grinning Annelise, the latter of whom jerked her head meaningfully in the direction of Maya's father, sitting at the head of the ancient oak dining table in the kitchen and looking as though he'd sat down accidentally at a chimps' tea party. He rubbed his affronted ribcage with exaggerated hurt. 'Why do we like these people, Harlock? They're so  _mean…'_

'We're the only people who put up with your antics?' Mamoru asked innocently, with a wink at Maya, who had to hide a smile in her napkin. She sat back and let the banter wash over her. After the past few weeks, the easy-going humour and friendly sniping was both refreshing and comforting. And Harlock - to her surprise and delight, seemed so much more at ease in his skin than she remembered him ever being, happy to tease his brother, his friend and his nieces and take it himself in good humour. For a while at least, the problems of the outside world didn't reach inside the solid walls of the old castle.

She should have known it couldn't last…

* * *

The first rumblings of the oncoming storm reached them only three days after the joint ceremony that both joined her to Harlock and made her a citizen of Earth. Khalsa came running into the kitchen from the courtyard, breathing heavily as the now rather large family group sat down to breakfast.

'Captain! Tochiro - have you seen the news?'

Harlock - with a lap full of small nieces, looked up and shook his head. His hair - neatly cut back to just below his ears, which was as far as he'd bend on the regulations - only just brushed the top of his collar as he raised his head to stare at his crewman. 'I've been a little distracted the last couple of days - what is it?'

Mamoru shooed Aurora off his own lap and reached for the remote to the small warp screen on the worksurface. 'Which channel?'

'SSNN - they've been covering this since it broke in the early hours Earth time,' Khalsa replied. He sat down heavily on one of the spare chairs. 'It's not looking good.'

Maya shared a worried glance with Lisel, and turned her gaze to the small screen. A young, dark haired anchorwoman was starting her intro to the footage on screen behind her, which quickly faded to a voice-over of the footage of a large naval battle.

'...unmanned satellites surrounding the planet Marduk captured part of the engagement in orbit, before they were taken out by stray fire from the enemy ships. The vessels came out of IN-SKIP around the planet just before dawn, local time, in direct violation of the rules of navigation. Several ships came out of the warp too close and impacted on the surface, causing considerable damage to the capital before the counter-fleet could engage.

'The planet is a major staging post for the Intra-galactic fleet in colonial space, and the loss of life is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands - military personnel, support staff and their families as well as local settlers are believed to be among the dead. The fleet reports as to the number of ships lost is not yet known, but the planet is known to have the facilities for over two thousand ships of the line, and as yet, the numbers that made it into orbit to tackle this dreadful terrorist attack are a mere fraction of that number.'

Destroyer and battleship class vessels strafed the lower atmosphere as they watched, the damage hidden by boiling clouds. Maya felt Harlock's hand grope for her own under the table, and she squeezed his fingers in answer to the deathgrip he had on hers. Next to her, Annelise laid her head on Tochiro's shoulder, and across the room, a shocked Mamoru placed his arm around Miranda's waist.

'Reports are coming in that the Homecoming Movement have claimed responsibility - the group suspected of having been behind a recent attack on a major ship-building yard off the orbit of Castlemaine. Sources within the fleet have confirmed that the ships seen here match the specifications of those stolen in the raid. The government however has yet to make a public statement.' The footage switched back to the studio, and the anchorwoman tried her best to give her audience a reassuring smile, and failed by a considerable margin. Maya would have rated it "sickly" at best. 'This just in however - the Homecomers have issued an ultimatum to the Solar Federation, demanding that all the non-viable colonies begin evacuation with immediate effect, and their populations allowed to return to Earth. And…' She placed her hand to her ear. 'And I'm told that we have a live feed from the Capitol on Mars, in answer.'

Again the footage changed, to the Council Room on Mars. A group of solemn, overdressed, corpulent figures - all of them, Maya noticed idly, at least ten years older than her father - sat around the council table, whilst one of their number read out their reply.

She'd expected it to be the response they'd been hearing about for weeks - the expulsion of the colonial citizens from the Solar System.

'The new Gaia Coalition will not bow down to acts of terror on this or any other matter. In response to these outrageous demands, we have one reply. As of today, all those resident in the Solar System who do not hold valid entitlement to citizenship are hereby ordered to present themselves to their nearest government office. Those who comply without resistance will be deported to the nearest habitable worlds. Anyone defying these orders, or seeking to assist those who resist, will be subject to arrest and either deportation or execution for treason. Designated areas are being set aside on the inner planets, Ceres, and the Saturnian and Neptunian moons. In addition all out-system fleet and diplomatic facilities are to detain all colonial-born staff with immediate effect. All assets held…'

Mamoru switched the channel to the Mars feed, only for the screen to be filled with scenes of chaos on the streets of the Capitol beneath the gleaming spires, as brown uniformed soldiers tried to keep order - at least according to the captions. To Maya's eyes it looked as more like the soldiers were the aggressors, as three faceless figures clubbed a young man to the ground before practically hog-tying him and hauling him off to a waiting hover wagon. From the tight-lipped glares around her, she realised she wasn't alone in this assessment.

'Switch it off,' Harlock said bleakly. Mamoru cut the feed without argument, and for several minutes no-one made a sound except for the clearing of throats. Then Harlock met Khalsa's eyes. 'Tell me we managed to get our people out before this hit?'

'Old Man Oyama went back to Titan after your nuptials. I think we got most of our staff away, but we thought we still had a couple of weeks lead-time.' The young sikh shook his head sadly. 'Anyone still in Grape Valley might be rolled up…'

Tochiro got to his feet, his chair scraping the flagstoned floor as he pushed it back. 'I'll get onto dad right away - there's going to be a lag before anyone heads out our way - even a couple of hours might help.'

'Tell him to be careful - they're out for blood. Nevich and Zone will be watching to see if we pull anything,' Harlock warned him. 'I wouldn't put it past this lot to make that aiding and abetting retroactive.' Tochiro nodded and practically sprinted out of the kitchen on his short legs.

'I need some air,' Harlock said abruptly. He stood up and leaned over to drop a kiss on top of Maya's head. Before she could reply, he'd left, the sound of his booted steps fading all too quickly.

The rest of breakfast was conducted in an almost funereal silence.

* * *

She found him later in the long gallery, standing leaning against the wall facing the bust of that long-dead rebellious ancestor with the eyepatch, his eyes half closed as he leaned back, legs stretched out and ankles crossed, arms folded across that deceptively broad chest.

'Mamoru said I might find you in here,' she said softly, as she moved to stand at his side. She leaned back against the wall herself, not quite mirroring his stance. Close, but not touching. For a while neither of them said anything, and to her surprise it was her husband of not even seventy-two hours who spoke first.

'We don't learn, do we?' he asked. For a moment she wondered if he was addressing the bust, or her. 'All we needed to do was solve the terraforming problem - and stop building sprawling hive-cities on the green worlds we do find. But no. We had to run out to the stars and take our shit with us. Some people,' he continued bitterly, 'do not deserve nice things.'

'Father says they left the colonists hung out to dry on the marginal worlds for far too long - creating a second or even third-class tier of citizens…'

He laughed mirthlessly. 'Third would be pushing it. If you could see the state of some of those worlds… Generations of families driven below any reasonable poverty line, dying too young trying to scratch a living from soils that just can't support life. And it was done knowingly - those worlds should  _never_ have been opened up for colonisation, but those in charge argued that it was a perfect way to reduce Earth's overpopulation, seeing a way to get rid of what they saw as "useless" surplus population. Well - they sowed the harvest - now they'll reap the whirlwind…'

She laid her head on his shoulder and linked her arm through his, feeling his tension even though he didn't raise his voice. And truly, there was nothing she could say. The first shots had been fired, and barring a miracle, if her father was right, the galaxy would be in flames before long.  _But perhaps it would burn itself out quickly, out in the colonies…_

She felt guilty for being so selfish, even before she finished the thought. But looking out of the leaded window over the wooded hills towards Heiligenstadt below, she couldn't help but pray that whatever was coming would at least spare Earth.  _This is our homeworld… our cradle and our refuge in the darkness… The terrors of deep space have never touched this verdant, beautiful world._

She looked up into Harlock's face to see he was looking out at the same view, and he looked down at her and smiled faintly. 'Don't worry, my love. I'll protect it for you,' he said softly, dropping a light kiss on her forehead. 'I promise.'

'How did you know what I was thinking?' she asked with a forced laugh, determined not to show her fears to him.

His next kiss brushed her lips. 'I recognised the look on your face - I see it reflected in the glass sometimes.' He placed his arm around her and held her close. 'No matter what happens, no matter what it takes, I'll always protect you and our home and family.' He stared over her head, his gaze becoming slightly vacant as though staring beyond the sunny blue sky into the darkness beyond. 'Always.'

* * *

Author's note: Maya and Harlock's story will continue in "Eye of the Storm" - detailing some of the events leading up to the final battle of the Homecoming War - and the part of the story Isora  _didn't_ know, and finish in "Dominion" - which will pick up the aftermath of the destruction of Earth, and Harlock's curse...

_(For those interested - this is made up of whole cloth, but_ does  _tie in to some ideas I had about how events could play out in the CGI verse. But honestly - it started as a bit of a "gag" based on a conversation with Pollywantsa, that I dashed off on hols earlier this year, which got a bit out of hand - and a lot more serious - once I started to really think through what must have been building in this civilisation in the years before this war… I'm not usually a fan of prequels, but once I started, this sort of took on a life of its own...)_


End file.
